Innovation/Entrepreneurial Change Paper

This article explains that Blockbuster has been negatively impacted by the missed opportunities for innovation and this served as one of the reasons that lead to its failures. Through innovation the other competing companies were able to shift their manner of availing the movies to the customers. For instance, a company like Redbox offered their video game and movie rentals from a retail kiosk that assisted the customers in getting the games and movies from their chain stores or supermarkets in their localities. Some other movie streaming companies like Hulu and Netflix increased the customer’s convenience in accessing their favorite television series and movies from their homes. Blockbuster did not perceive the changing lifestyle of the consumers and their demand for more convenient services. Innovation may emerge from any employee. Howard Schultz, the Starbucks CEO had to visit every store manager around the globe in a bid to get some assistance on the ways of coming up with ideas that were innovative that would involve redesigning their café experience. Innovation would be measured by Blockbuster through perceiving the number of ideas that they receive from their managers in a month. Rewards for the employees who come up with the ideas is the implementation of such ideas in the company that makes the employee to feel that they invested in the company. This assists in sourcing for new ideas from the employees whose ideas are invested in the company and thus they get motivated. One way that Netflix has become innovative is by being symbolic for instance they name their conference rooms after the movies from Blockbuster and this assist in reminding them the continuous breakthroughs that it has made through its employees.

1. Sherman, E. (2010). Blockbuster's Plight Exposes a Broader Corporate Creativity Problem [Update]. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blockbusters-plight-exposes-a-broader-corporate-creativity-problem-update/

This article explains that Blockbuster has already signed the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This acts as a lesson to many other companies. The main reason for this is that Blockbuster failed to be innovative enough and worst of all they did not counter the digital changes that came by so as to stay in the market. However, the issue may not be necessarily lack of innovation but using the wrong type of innovation. One professional development consultant, Sandy Cormack asserts that creativity involves is in two types that is being adaptive and innovative. Being adaptive call for the use of creativity in improving what is in existence. Innovation calls for complete breakdown of new ground. All of them are necessary for business. Blockbuster did it the opposite way. They used the adaptive innovation that involved business model and channeling of the pop and mom business store. This lack of balance between innovative and adaptive creativity created a failure for the business since it could not understand the implication of introducing radically different model of business.

2. Jamjoum, A., & Anscombe, J. (2017). Winning in Digital Innovation Turning Scale and Legacy into Strengths - Paper - A.T. Kearney | Australia - A.T. Kearney. Retrieved from https://www.atkearney.com.au/paper/-/asset_publisher/dVxv4Hz2h8bS/content/id/13942413

Efficiency and scale have been used by the industry leaders in the world as their driving force but in the digital age success mainly lies on the ability of the company on being innovative with new business models as well as technology. With the emergence of 3-D printing, artificial intelligence and the internet, many of the companies have been disrupted and adapting to such changes mainly requires a lot of experience and continuous learning about technology. Many companies have been affected by the changes. Even those that have not yet seen such impacts are not safe. Forbes magazine explains that over the next five years, 40 % of the companies will undergo some form of digital disruption. For international commerce the impact will be huge. During the past ten years many of the once great companies like Blockbuster and Kodak have seen a lot of struggles while trying to stay with the rapid pace of changes and innovation. Innovation at Blockbuster would be enabled when they realize that it is not something that is optional. The company should embrace some new dynamics, come up with new ideas and allow them to embrace and reset the whole organization. Blockbuster should also ensure that it develops a digital strategy separately and it should also include digital concepts in all its business model aspects.

3. Mindtools Content team. (2017). Creative Problem Solving Finding Innovative Solutions to Challenges. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/creative-problem-solving.htm

Blockbuster should have created a problem-solving process years ago which could have assisted the business to thrive despite competition. This process would have assisted in redefining the opportunities and problems for Blockbuster and would have assisted them in coming up with innovative solutions and responses. The company should have implemented the 4-step creative process of problem solving that is to clarification, ideating, developing and implementing. In the first step it is crucial to identify the correct challenge, goal, or desire so that a correct solution may be created. Ideating involves the generation of ideas. It is important to apply creativity in this step. Developing involves coming up with the best possible options that undergo evaluation to develop solutions. It involves the analysis of whether the solutions have the capability of meeting the needs of the business and the 3criteria.Decision is then made on whether there may be successful implementation of the solutions. The last step is implementation and it involves putting in place the plan developed. Communication with the team about the plan is crucial and it ensure that all the people accept and understand it. If Blockbuster had created enough energy and time on this they would be operating in the DVD rental bus innovation.

4. Hisrich, R. & Kearney, C. (2014). Managing innovation and entrepreneurship. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Implementation refers to the process whereby the ideas that are created are put into effect while evaluation focuses on the judgment about the idea that has been brought up. Implementation involves suing administrative, managerial and persuasive abilities in ensuring that there is an effective operation of the alternative that has been selected. This is transforming the creative idea to become a reality. There is need of evaluation for implementation to perceive the viability of the innovative idea. If Blockbuster creates some energy and time for the assessment of the creative ideas, then they will be able to know the kind of ideas that are suitable for implementation. They will gain the knowledge of where the business is heading to and how it should develop. One of the most critical steps in the process of revitalizing operations of Blockbuster is evaluating the external technology as well as the associated application processes.

5. Bennington, D. & Samuel, P. (2016). Blockbuster busted part 1: an s-curve analysis. Retrieved from http://www.chiefinnovator.com/structure-methods/blockbuster-busted-part-1-s- curve-analysis

This article describes Blockbuster’s failures on the fact that they were overtaken by competitors just because of putting too much focus on the current structure instead of looking for new ways of innovation and expansion. The company also lacked connection with their customers, and thus they were unable to realize that the customers’ desires were shifting to the alternative methods that would satisfy their entertainment needs. Essentially all the components in the ecosystem of Blockbuster were full of changes and innovation, but the company did not know about it. When they discovered the ideas, they were too late, and other companies had already beaten them. Blockbuster’s innovation and implementation issues emerged from the fact that they did not change their CEOs and the company never adopted, pivoted or modified the mental models that were in existence as well as the biases of the movie industry.