Innovation to an Organization

Competitor's trends

Microsoft Corporation has many competitors, but few major competitors are Apple, SAP, International Business Machine (IBM), Google, and Oracle (ORCL). All these companies have a well-established and reputable name because of their product and services. Apple and Google are among the top four most influential firms, along with Facebook and Microsoft itself. These firms are well-known for their innovation and creativity. They have sustained their market share based on their innovative product and services. The reason that they are the primary competitors of 'world's best company is that they are in the same list for providing distinguish product and services. The organizational structure and corporate culture at Apple and Google compliment the process of innovation to a great extent. Additionally, both organizations have innovation centers and teams whose sole responsibility is to create a unique and novel product and service.

Trend comparison

Microsoft Corporation is considered as one of the most innovative firms, but this was not the case a few years ago. Microsoft lost its innovative brand image in 2010, and in the next few years, this image becomes more and more real in the minds of users because Microsoft stops creating new features for their products and services. Their products like Microsoft Office and their operating system became static, and users built a perception of ‘boring'' and ‘static'' in their minds for Microsoft. Then Microsoft realizes its mistake and made changes in strategic management. After a change in leadership in 2014, Microsoft has been recovering from its static phase and have started innovation again. Now the organizational structure and corporate culture support innovation and creativity to the point that Microsoft is considered as one of most innovative organizations (Langston, 2019).

Stakeholder's analysis

Stakeholders play a crucial role in innovation and creativity. Stakeholders hold enough influence over organizational decision-makers that their opinions must be taken seriously, and value is attached to what they want from the organization. The main stakeholders include customers, providers, staff, and shareholders. All these stakeholders play a significant part in reintroducing innovation at Microsoft. Customers were the most influential group because 'customer's perception of a brand creates the difference of successful and failed organization. For Microsoft customers started perceiving the organization as static and boring firm and 'that's when Microsoft leadership had to wake up from their slumber and make the right decisions. The shareholders also act as the pressure group to influence the Microsoft leadership to make the right decision because based on 'customer's perception the market share of Microsoft product and services started to decrease which concerned the shareholders, and they started asking questions to board of directors which in turn influenced the top management and decision-makers to put their attention to innovation. Employees also played a major role in an innovative approach at the organization.

Organizational structure analysis

Organizational structure is one of the primary determinants of presence or absence of innovation at an organization. Firms with the bureaucratic style of the organizational structure have little innovation because the process of innovation demands openness and empowerment. The higher the power distance is, the less there is the empowerment of employees and lesser innovation and creativity. The organizational structure of Microsoft is not flat, but it is neither too bureaucratic. It is somewhat a combination of both, but there are certain factors which promote innovation at Microsoft, and these factors include organizational culture and diversity. The organizational culture at Microsoft appreciates unique ideas, and employees are appraised for their out of box thinking. This motivates employees to innovate and create (Dudovskiy, 2019).

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