Topics in Engineering Administration

Xu (2018) states that 3D technology and Artificial Intelligence have allowed most companies to work faster, reduce costs, and enhance their product development goals due to consistency. Aware of this, a pizza restaurant would work well with a robotic pizza-manufacturing cell as it is well able to maximize profit while minimizing cost at the same time. This is because the use of this robotic cell minimizes labor costs through its capability of doing the jobs of five employees. Entrepreneurship is not always about business and wealth creation but is all about being innovative, acknowledging opportunities, and adapting to change. Robotic pizza-manufacturing cell brings about adapting to change and embracing innovation (Dorf, 2019). This also becomes a launch that promotes sustainability, performance, and longevity of the pizza shop. This, therefore, qualifies to be a new venture opportunity with a more promising future for the pizza shop.

Now that the opportunity is clear, the next step is to identify the sweet spot between the opportunity, skill, and capabilities of the shop and the team on board. The sweet spot is the intersection between the opportunity onboard, the shop's interests, and the skills and capabilities of the team. Valles Global Industries, which is an innovative company that encourages innovation from employees, has approved that and offered to invest in the venture directly from the Inventor's salary wage in return of ten percent of the business. This means that the venture already has funding and an investor in it. Additionally, the Inventor also has possession of the pizza shop and does not need to have the trouble of location and permanent changes that he may require to make in the property. Therefore, this would be right to state that the sweet spot is met due to the availability of funding, investors on board, and a permanent location for the venture.

The success of the business venture will need a couple of stakeholders as entrepreneurs are not only workers of business but economics as well—Economics in terms of distribution, consumption, production, and service. Therefore, the venture should be capable of meeting all these needs while maintaining the sustainability of the business. One of the major stakeholders in the venture is information technology system providers, as the venture is wholly dependent on such systems. System engineers, consultants, security architects will also have to come on board so as do drive the development of a very strong, reliable, and sustainable system free form threats and malfunctioning; this is to meet intellectual capital. Financial capital is definitely another aspect that will need stakeholders like financiers or investors to help in raising all the funds needed to make the venture a success.

Given that the Inventor only has an assurance from the employer of one year paid leave to develop this venture and actualize it, he will not only need to be committed but super committed to ensure that he beat the deadline successfully. Should this fail, he may be left with no employment as well as a failed venture. Therefore, it is necessary for the Inventor to treat this like a project, which should have a start and end timeline and should assign all the required resources as well. It is, therefore, important that the project works out as there is so much at stake. The success of this project will also be an encouragement and challenge to other employees at Valles Global Industries to push into creating inventions and implementing them. The Inventor also stands to make a significant investment out of the venture uplifting his financial position and that of its investors.

Is this a good opportunity for the Inventor? Definitely yes, is proper feasibility test is done prior to the implementation of the robotic pizza-manufacturing cell. A feasibility test or study helps the people in charge of the projects to identify the cons and pros of the project prior to its commencement (Butler. 2016). Crucial information is also obtained right from the production, distribution, consumption, and service processes. Collaboration with vital stakeholders could also make this opportunity not only excellent but insightful as well, especially when the Inventor is faced with setbacks, many tasks, and decision making and problem resolution.

Chapter Two

Dorf (2019) states that there are various types of opportunities, and it takes an entrepreneur to either create, select, or take advantage of. Opportunities in most cases either arise from a need or the emergence of new technology. A deficiency occurs when the market demand is not met, leaving entrepreneurs sorting out for solutions that they invent then push to consumers. On the other hand, the emergence of technology creates opportunities through innovation then pushes the goods and services to consumers. Technology thus means that not only brings opportunities but opens up possibilities. Technology brings about the disruption of the usual way of doing things. It opens up the market for possibilities. However, the technology cannot work alone but has to be aligned with other practices and procedures put in place. This summarizes opportunities through technology, push, and demand-pull.

In this venture, the opportunity is a technology push as there is no specific need in the market but a need for innovation in the pizza shop. The pizza shop has to cut operational costs through the robotic pizza manufacturing cell by having to get rid of at least five employees. This makes the business more profitable as a result. On the consumer side, the customers are able to receive quicker orders as well as uniformly prepared orders in terms of ingredients and size. A reduction of operation costs also allows the customers to enjoy cheaper pizzas. This deal is good enough to push the product to the customers are they are attracted to the more affordable pizzas as well as consistently uniformly prepared orders. Though no need is available in the market, the power of technology allows the pizza shop to create a more competitive business making it easier for customers to choose to buy from the shop other than other pizza shops.

To ensure that the customer is at the center of this whole venture, design thinking and market engagement is one way of helping create a well-defined customer development process. The best way of doing this is by carrying out market research; this would help in the first stage of identifying the needs of the customers. There is so much to learn from past eateries, who failed to develop their products to match the needs of the customers. An example is McDonald's in Vietnam; the franchise assumed that the American market needed is what the Vietnam market needed (Rusell, 2019). The result of this was the failure of the franchise in the country. To conquer this, it is important to know customers' preferences, especially in the ingredients and the portions of the pizzas that they order.

The next step of the customer development process is customer validation. Until when the customer needs are well defined, then the customer validation can be formulated. Why? This is because one is only able to verify customers only if they become consistent in their purchases, thus increasing sales. Consistent customers mean that they are satisfied with what they get. In this case, when the pizza orders take a lesser time to prepare, are sold slightly cheaper, and preparation matches up with the taste buds of the customers, it goes without saying that the customers will be satisfied.

The next step is to customer creation, where demand for more of the products beats supply of the demand. Considering that the pizza shop already had customers, the managers of the shop can use the same customers to create demand by creating promotional fliers that highlight the new feature that the pizza shop has to offer as a result of the implementation of the new venture. That is cheaper pizza, less turn-around time, and well-customized orders. Once this is done, then demand for the pizza is created by word of mouth, reviews, referrals, and the appealing offer from the fliers.

The final step is company building; this basically means the creation of a marketing plan and operational sales. Upon implementing this venture, the pizza shop will definitely have a competitive advantage over other pizza shops due to its cost differentiation and product development. Therefore, a marketing plan should be underway to ensure that the whole town is aware of what the pizza shop has to offer and the new changes that have been made with the customer in mind. This is one way of winning previous customers, new customers as well as boosting the confidence of the customers currently enjoying what the pizza shop has to offer. In the long run, the company becomes a brand and a household name for cheap and customer-centered pizzas.

To validate the ‘valiability’ of the opportunity, (Dorf, 2019) states the importance of identifying whether the opportunity works well only as an idea or as well as a genuinely good opportunity. In evaluating this opportunity, it is essential to carry out an analysis of the current conditions of the industry and the expected results after the implementation of the venture. If the desired results beat the current conditions of the sop, then the opportunity is viable. Additionally, another guideline to consider is the exit plan, should the project not work-out. This should, of course, not incur too much loss to the Inventor as well as the potential client. Though it is good to be opportunistic, it is essential for one to be risk-averse as it helps one be able to maneuver through losses (Howley, 2017).

To clearly evaluate the venture, five necessary steps are essential. This includes capabilities, novelty, resources, return, and commitment. In an effort of weeding out an experience that is unpromising, it is vital to refer to these five steps. The first is to compare the capabilities of what the venture can archive and what the inventors intend it to achieve. The main goal of technology, in this case, is to drive innovation in the business while making the opportunity effective and efficient to the customer, the pizza shop. This makes the venture capable of being able to be applied for the intended purposes. Novelty measures if the product is indifferent to what is actually in place. This, by far, is affirmative as the venture will bring a transformation of the operations of the pizza shop, making work easier and faster.

The third step is to measure the financing ability of the venture. Is the venture able to attract more resources such as finances, human resources, and any other support required? Right from the start, the venture has proved fruitful as it already has a ten percent share of investment from the Inventor's employer in addition to a one year paid leave salary. This makes the opportunity viable due to the fact of already having employers on board. Returns are simply about a return on investment. Once the venture is successfully implemented, only then can it be clear if there is a return of investment or not. Supposing that the venture works out as anticipated, and then it will definitely bring returns not only from the customer but from other potential customers who will want to adopt the same concept. The final step is committed, just how committed are the stakeholder on board. The Inventor only has a year to complete the project based on the recommendations from the employer; this, therefore, calls for a lot of commitment from him. Regarding other stakeholders, the Inventor should be able to clearly communicate the timelines and the things at stake to prompts more commitment from them as well.

Chapter Three

The vision statement in this venture is to promote customer experience through innovation and technology. The main goal of this venture is to use technology to push the pizza's that the pizza shop has to offer to its customers without having to have to give too many discounts and offers but by promoting customer experience. The value propositions for the opportunity include collaboration, commitment, value, and quality. Collaboration is to drive all stakeholders, including the customer, to work hand in hand with the Inventor. Commitment is to ensure that the work is not just completed on time but successfully completed on time. Value is based in terms of time, the resources involved, and the client as well. Quality is to ensure that the end product of the venture speaks for itself, mainly because the Inventor hopes to acquire more customers from the venture.

Fjeldstad (2018) states that a business model is a road map design to direct and plana successful opportunity. It also calls one to key in and aligns everything needed to make the business successful. Based on the business design process drafted by Dolf (2019), the starting point of this business would be to acknowledge the new technology in place, which is a Robotic pizza-manufacturing cell. The cell is designed to take up the roles of five employees in the shop by being used to make pizzas as designed by the pizza shop. To do this right, then the venture will need to identify its target group and the value addition its adding to the business. In this case, the target group is mostly young people who, in most cases, want instant things. They do not have all the time in the world to wait 'forever' for a platter of pizza; people who seek deliveries are also being targeted, with the hope that they will have to wait for a shorter time to have their order delivered. Value addition is cheaper pizza, uniformity in terms of pizza size and taste, and less waiting time. A trial and error is necessary to ensure that the venture works out as anticipated. Prior to implementation, a testing shall be carried out to measure whether the venture is able to produce pizzas in lesser time, less operational cost, and making the order as requested. Should this happen successfully, then the next step is to implement the venture; if not, then it goes back to start where the venture is reviewed and necessary changes made. Upon implementation, the venture should be evaluated keenly to ensure that it meets all the goals to which it was designed for.

The robotic manufacturing cell will be responsible for pressing the dough to the right crust to pie ratio, dispensing the sauce and other ingredients needed as toppings to the pizza and spreading the sauce. The speed of the cell be approximately seven times more which not only make work easier but also reduce the time customers have to wait to get their orders ready. The cell will also work in an assembly line format which in regard to production will lower the cost of production. Based on the references of the customers, the cell will be designed with algorithms that much up with what customers want thus preparing pizzas that sell.

Chapter Four

To help the Inventor and the stakeholder on board to develop a strategic plan, a SWOT Analysis is very important. Below is the venture's SWOT Analysis

Based on the pyramid of value creation, the best strategy that would work for this venture would definitely be strategic asserts and innovation and. The reason for this is because the venture is selling an invention while the client is buying an asset. Investing in a strategic asset brings about unfamiliar competition to competitors while at the same time customer satisfaction through strategic innovation ( Schreiber, 2020). Collaboration being one of the value propositions in this venture, the choice to create alliances is necessary. The kind of alliance needed should be a cooperative strategy that keys customers, complementors, suppliers, and competitors. The benefit of an association is that there is always a symbiotic relationship between the participants of the alliance. In this case, since the venture is a project, then the partnership should be a project-based partnership where the parties involved have low commitment duration as well as a low control of shares. Though the risk is mostly absorbed by the primary holder, the profits and benefits in place are also enjoyed by the main shareholder as well.

When optimizing customer satisfaction and customer experience, strategic innovation, and strategic assets are an excellent strategy to do so as it ensures that the customers invest in the right asset which is innovative enough to ensure that it meets the goals set for it. To ensure that the Inventor has control over the venture, creating allies based on a project to project basis to ensure that they have control of the venture and the same time enjoys the success of the venture. Those two are the strategies to be employed in this opportunity.

To ensure that the aspect of social responsibility is maintained throughout the project or venture, the core values of the venture must always be in play to ensure that every stakeholder in the project is valued and collaborations are appreciated by everyone. In addition, when a team is able to work together, not only does work become more manageable, but it also becomes enjoyable since every member on board is appreciated.

References

Butler, R. D., & Frick, C. J. A. (2016). The Importance of Feasibility in Strategy and Operational Art. US Army War College.

Dorf, R. C., & Byers, T. H. (2019). Technology ventures. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Fjeldstad, Ø. D., & Snow, C. C. (2018). Business models and organization design. Long Range Planning, 51(1), 32-39.

Howley, P., Dillon, E., Heanue, K., & Meredith, D. (2017). Worth the risk? The behavioral path to well‐being. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 68(2), 534-552.

Russell, C. A., Schau, H. J., & Bliese, P. (2019). Brand afterlife: Transference to alternate brands following corporate failure. Journal of Business Research, 97, 257-267

Schreiber, D., Tometich, P., Zen, A. C., & Engelman, R. (2020). Reconfiguring the Firm’s Assets for Innovation. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 15(1), 27-39.

Xu, G., Wu, Y., Minshall, T., & Zhou, Y. (2018). Exploring innovation ecosystems across science, technology, and business: A case of 3D printing in China. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 136, 208-221.