Written Assignment 3: Data Collection Techniques

Running head: INNOVATION AT INTERNATIONAL FOODS 1

Innovation at International Foods

Harish Chowdary Chunchu

University of the Cumberlands

Organization Leadership & Decision Making

Professor: Dr. Richard Tabu

07/04/2020

INNOVATION AT INTERNATIONAL FOODS 2

Abstract

This case study aims to look at the visions, challenges, solutions, and value that will be achieved

by implementing innovations at the International Food Group company. The company wants to ensure that

the new decisions are implemented and add value to the organization. However, various challenges arise

from the employees and the processes of ensuring that the visions and objectives are attained—these

challenges include assessing the portfolio of applications and establishing target consumers for the company.

The competitors are stepping forward with their data systems and applications. They are getting more sales

and more influence in the market. It also explains solutions enable the company to level with its competitor.

This case study summarizes on the issues faced by Josh Novak with him team in implementing innovative

ideas as part of joining in International Food Group. It also explains the solutions to the issues faced by him

like evidence-based decisions, visualizing the data on how innovative ideas add value to the business and

how cloud architecture can be implemented in larger organizations like International Food Group.

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Introduction The International Food group company aims to put in innovations that will scale up the company's

success. It is one of the largest sellers of food products in the world. Business models that do well in the

21st century is anchored on technology and management which International Food Group tried to leverage.

To beat competitors in the 21st century, a business needs to have better technology systems and applications

than its competitors. International Food Group (IFG) delivers expertise in product selection and provide

unique customer experience. The organization is good with implementing new strategies to stay on demand

and it takes over companies like Glow-Foods that come up with new set of ideas and align the process with

them including IT. Glow-Foods ideas were unique to get sales onto roof top like advertising through

Facebook, Package design and leveraging young sales representatives.

Case study for innovation at international foods

Professionalism in doing things within the business is the first critical thing in achieving the

company's vision. As witnessed in (McKeen & Smith, 2015), it is through professionalism that employees

can be able to communicate with each other effectively and efficiently. Through improved communication,

ideas can be presented, interpreted, analyzed, and implemented efficiently and effectively. Formal or

professional communication enables different divisions within the company to cooperate and reinforce each

other appropriately. This was the primary concern for Josh team when they started taking initiatives and

tried to explore new technologies, they were asked to take prior approval before communicating with

product team (Mckeen & Smith, 2015). Thus, it is through communication and following guidelines this

company be able to attain its visions. The company's first vision is innovating applications that will have

low maintenance costs and will be effective in reaching the target customers. The second vision is funding

efforts that will lead to the development of innovations. The last vision is to ensure that the information

technology implemented matches the business goal of the company. There must be IT marketing manager

like Tonya who could resolve the conflicts, explain corporate procedures, and provide support in innovation

for Josh and team.

Challenges Facing International Food Company

The company experiences the following challenges. The first challenge is that the portfolio of the

applications lags. The systems within the company are outdated. Thus, they are delays in processing the

vital information required for the company's success. Communication needs to be efficient, fast, and

accurate. The communication must go through corporate procedure as it involves security and privacy

concerns for the organization for which Rick Visser was responsible. Innovation team of Josh must consider

involve respective team members even though it is difficult. The next challenge is that the company

experienced difficulties in establishing target clients. The target client is the youths who are below 30 years.

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So, the company gets trouble in identifying and reaching the youths who will be interested in their products.

The company needs to connect directly with customers through creating interactive websites that will

showcase their products. Also, the company needs to reach to different communities and gain insights into

their needs and interest.

By identifying their needs and interests, the company will be able to position itself in a better

position of delivering and becoming successful. Still, in the second challenge, the other challenge is

identifying strategies and applications that are cost-efficient. The third and last challenge is ensuring that

the data used by the company is accurate and firsthand. The salespeople in the company reach their clients

on s sheet system. Data needs to circulate effectively and efficiently in the finance department, management,

and privacy and security departments. Therefore, the company needs to implement ideas on Cloud (McKeen

& Smith, 2015). This will be important because it will link the various databases of the company. More so,

it will ensure that information used is accurate, fast, and secured. The best way for Josh and team to address

the issue of innovation in larger organization is to implement a continuous process that improves the

innovative ideas and have measurable results to check the progress. It helps in achieving quality and ability

to create value to the organization (Julia, 2018).

Solutions for international food company

It is through creativity and innovation that the company can be able to overcome the challenges

that they will be facing. Through creativity, the company needs to identify systems and applications that

will match their goals. These innovations are supposed to be cost-efficient and should add value to the

company. This means that the implementation of the systems and applications needs to vet by the finance

committee. The finance team will identify the strategic value of the systems and applications. More so, they

will be able to identify the maintenance cost of the systems. Evidence based decisions are to be considered

so that ideas go through process of evaluation which allows innovation team to change direction based on

learnings (Viki, 2018).

They are required to approve the systems that will operate at minimal cost while contributing to

attaining the company's vision. The chief technology officer and his team need to devise systems that have

good quality. They are supposed to create a technical environment that is simplified and ensures

predictability of measuring the delivery projection of the company. The systems must be able to track every

activity and transaction which happens in the company. They are supposed to ensure that the systems are

easy to maintain.

Concerning the solutions, the company executives are supposed to ensure the best applications are

funded well. This is because it is only through enough funding that the applications and systems can be

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implemented. The second thing the executive team of the company should be able to set an appropriate

criterion for implementing the applications and systems. It is only through using the right standards that the

whole process can take less time and minimum costs. The management team is tasked with the

responsibility of organizing the factors of implementing the systems and applications and assembling and

organizing resources that will be required in the implementation. They are supposed to direct the entire

team efforts toward achieving the set visions (McKeen & Smith, 2015). Josh and Tonya could develop a

plan that also addresses key issues of implementing cloud architecture. They must leverage the advantages

of cloud having less storage, reduced cost prices and used widely in enterprise architectures that convince

the management team. The comparison between performance of cloud migrated companies and companies

that have not could make huge impact. The reduce in operational cost, rapid prototyping and faster

development and deployment of new products and services must be explained clearly to give confidence to

the team (Lynn, 2017).

Results

Strategy and governance

The technology that is being implemented needs to be manageable. Thus, the company must adopt

portfolio management. Portfolio management has two levels of management: inventory management and

reporting and analyzation management. This will allow the company to know the decisions that need to be

made, the body or person who is supposed to make the decisions, and the way in which those decisions are

going to be made. It is through Professionalism in communication and the way of doing things that the

management will be effective and successful.

Technical support and value

The implementation of the systems is supposed to add value to the company's efforts. First, the

systems are supposed to add value by reducing the maintenance cost. If the maintenance cost is low and the

systems can deliver, there is no doubt that the company's vision will be attained. Second, the systems and

applications should add value to the company by ensuring that systems are easy and friendly to operate.

They should be interactive with the target clients and the company's staff. This will ensure that there are

efficiency and effectiveness in communication, management, and doing transactions of the company.

Finally, the new systems and applications should add value to the company by prioritizing to serve the

objectives and vision of the company.

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Discussion

The governance of the company is supposed to be inclusive when it comes to making decisions.

All the necessary departments are supposed to be engaged in the decision-making process. The managers

need to have awareness and accountability for every process that happens within the company. Effective

and efficient governance is critical for overcoming the challenges that the company is facing. More so,

managing the applications require professionalism. The applications used are supposed to capture key data

from the different levels of the company. This is because it is by analyzing and interpreting the data that

the company will know where it is and the decisions they are supposed to take to reach where they want.

Conclusion

So, as per the research conducted by me, Josh Novak initially faced some issues with transition to

larger organization (International Food Group) as every new idea or innovation must go through company

procedures to avoid risks and reach out to customers effective way. Though Tonya IT marketing manager

provided support there were still some issues with innovation which must be addressed. Josh must develop

a plan with Tonya about the business value of these initiatives and he must be able to convince the finance

team based on the analysis with data. In addition, he has the idea of implementing cloud architecture in the

organization though that is the future still it is a great deal of work in migrating to cloud infrastructure for

which clear process must be defined. In my view success of the applications depends on three factors that

reinforce each other. The first one is management that is anchored on professional procedures. The second

factor is the application inventory. This will be important because it will ensure it will structure data in a

way that is accurate and complete. The third factor is the reporting capability of the applications. It is

through the right reporting capabilities and evidence-based decisions that the company will be able to

innovate and reach out to the customers effective way.

Discussion Questions

In discussion with Josh, Tonya foreshadows “some serious obstacles to overcome.” Describe these

obstacles in detail.

The first obstacle that we can identify from the case study is, small scale vs large scale business because,

small businesses lack foundation, structural capabilities, and customer relations. Glow-Foods owned by

Josh Novak was a successful start-up and International Food Group was impressed with Josh’s IT plan at

Glow Foods and requested his help at IFG for IT Strategies. So, Since Josh worked at a small startup, the

things IFG was expecting were completely different and corporate.

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The second obstacle was the process to be followed and a very little space to play with new ideas. So, it is

difficult to develop a plan for innovation and creativity that goes through all the corporate procedures. These

corporate concerns were valid. But, however, Josh and his team were used to platforms like Facebook and

Instant Messenger to publicize their ideas and conduct few researches. This restriction was quite annoying

to their team. Also, Ben’s concern was to follow the protocols and not to have him bypassed while talking

to product teams and meetings.

The next obstacle was with respect to creating a bottle neck for the transition of Glow Foods to IFG was

difficult since there were so many restrictions for Josh and his IT team, like requesting access for social-

media , going through layers for the work to be done. Like, consulting Ben Nokony, the team’s marketing

liaison, before talking to any product teams (Mckeen & Smith, 2015).

Another major setback of the team is they were not aware of costs and financial estimates when they were

asked to work for Sheema. But this issue was understandable since the team was not aware of the financial

issues until they discovered their capabilities, and this made them difficult to outline their budget. This lack

of credibility and knowledge was one of the obstacles that Tonya has mentioned. Based on Rick Visser’s

mention, the architect in charge, the organization of this scope cannot operate successfully.

How can Josh win support for his team’s three-point plan to use technology to help IFG

reach its customers?

Josh must come up with a three-point plan, that needed to reach their customers and use technology and

their IT expertise. For this, Josh needs to enhance the idea of interactive website. One of the approaches

would be to reach out to the uses for proper feedback. So, there could be chances of improving the idea.

The second step would be come up with plan that explains the business value from innovative ideas that

are proposed. He must get in touch with different communities that need encouragement. He must collect

the data and get insights on the interests which help the marketing plans and add value to the organization.

He must analyze the data and present evidences helping Ben to convince the finance team about innovation.

The third step would be working closely with Rick and work out a cost-effective plan that works for his

company. Josh must come up with repeatable process of evaluating ideas and testing them. This repeatable

process could turn innovative ideas into profitable business models (Viki, 2018). He must also concentrate

on cloud architecture give clarity on how cloud improves the performance of the organization and the way

it reduces cost by migration. He could also provide some comparison charts that provides evidence that

cloud implementation is cost-effective, requires less storage and how it impacts the future of Information

Technology. In this way he addresses all the issues posed by team and evidence-based decision would

always give confidence for team to invest on innovation in IT organization.

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References

Julia, K. (2018). 6 Best Practices and Key Success Factors for Innovation Management. Retrieved from

https://www.viima.com/blog/innovation-management-best-practices

Lynn, K. T. (2017). 5 ways cloud drives enterprise innovation. Retrieved from

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-computing/2017/05/17/cloud-drives-enterprise-innovation/

McKeen, J. D., & Smith, H. A. (2015). IT strategy: Issues and practices. Pearson Ed.

Viki, T. (2018). Six Principles for Creating A Good Corporate Innovation Process. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tendayiviki/2018/03/26/six-principles-corporate-innovation-

process/#648ad6da44f4

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