Innovation Opportunities at Flowspace Company

Running head: INNOVATION IN COMPANIES 1

INNOVATION IN COMPANIES 4

Innovation Opportunities at Flowspace Company

Tyran Hunt

University of Maryland

Innovation Opportunities at Flowspace Company

Innovative businesses succeed in meeting customer needs, which in turn gives them a competitive advantage over their competitors with low innovation capacities. Through innovation, a company is also able to improve the quality of both its products and services, which not only allows it to attract new customers but also allows the business to maintain those existing customers (Info Entrepreneurs, n.d.). Additionally, through high competitive advantage earned from innovative activities, the business has a chance of keeping its best talents, which in turn remain as the main drivers of innovations. Also, an innovative company succeeds in building its public image, which in turn helps it achieve the desired competitiveness. Furthermore, in addition to aiming at achieving competitiveness, innovative businesses aim at critically analyzing customers' needs to remain relevant in the field. Flowspace Company is one that is centered on innovations aiming at meeting customer needs.

Flowspace Company deals with the provision of warehousing services where it offers on-demand warehousing for businesses in addition to providing storage, transport, and service of a business' inventory each month with no space minimums. It is one of the most innovative companies today. In pursuit of high speed for delivery for businesses utilizing its services, the company decided to build a network of warehouses connected to intelligent software (FastCompany, 2020). The company has therefore been fast in ensuring that customer needs are centered on fast delivery of goods ordered. When such has been identified, it becomes easier to tailor-make services to fit the same purposes. Here, the start of the highly innovative company branches directly from warehousing problems evident by one of its founders, Ben Eachus, who, when working at The Honest Company, experienced fulfillment and warehousing challenges (FastCompany, 2020). He was struggling to find space that could be used to store the company's goods. He, therefore, decided to communicate with his friend, who happened to be a software engineer, and was also struggling at his workplace. The two came together and started a company that has come to be what Flowspce is today.

Despite having realized great success in facilitating easy storage of goods for merchants and, more importantly, fast delivery of goods to customers, the company aims at delivering goods to customers within hours. Therefore, it looks forward to a time when day deliveries will be considered too slow (FastCompany, 2020). The success of the team in commanding market is attributed to some factors. For example, its success came since they solve real problems by allowing the easy delivery of goods to customers (FastCompany, 2020). Also, the company has a highly talented team aiming at achieving the company's desired aims. More importantly, the company is one that puts great value on customer feedback. Therefore, since its inception, the company has attached great importance to surveys, in-person visits, and phone calls. This has allowed the company to take care of its customer needs with the utmost ease.

Despite having realized great success in commanding the warehousing market, the company still has a chance to incorporate other innovations leading to improved effectiveness and efficiency, which in turn gives it a competitive advantage over its determined competitors. The innovation opportunity has been presented to the company as it aims at reducing the time used to deliver products to the customers. According to Peter Drucker, innovative opportunities branches directly from unexpected situations (Pitcher, 2017). Notably, the business world is full of surprises. Where a company seeks at achieving or maintaining competitiveness, it must put great value to the unexpected happenings regardless of their nature, whether it is positive or negative to the company (Pitcher, 2017). Such unexpected events must be used as an opportunity to improve performance. Currently, as the Coronavirus moves around the world, disturbing world economies, there is a great need for the customer and other people to stay at home to avoid contracting the disease.

Worth noting, no individual can stay in the house without anything to consume or without needing something, maybe from a shopping center. Because of Coronavirus, many businesses have been forced to adopt the online method of business where its customers make orders online, and the orders are delivered to them (Inside Small Business, 2020). This presents an opportunity for Flowspace Company to improve its systems to allow them to reach to the customers more effectively. While at the same time, keeping them safe from interactions because it has been identified that one method in which the disease is transmitted is through human interaction. Therefore, the company can adopt the use of autonomous cars in the delivery of their goods to the customer location. An autonomous vehicle is one that needs no driver as it drives itself from the starting point to its predetermined location through the use of "autopilot" mode (Bar-Zeev et al., 2017). Notably, for such an advancement to work, there is the use of various in-vehicle techs, which includes adaptive cruise control, active steering, use of anti-lock braking systems, the technology that supports GPS navigation, laser and radar.

Notably, through the use of such cars, Flowspace Company will have the responsibility of monitoring the vehicle as it delivers goods ordered by the customers. Additionally, the company must adopt a considerable number of such vehicles depending on the number of customers demanding such services. The purchase of a significant amount of vehicles allows the company to increase its efficiency and effectiveness because there will be fewer delays. More importantly, where two or three customers shared the same location and made their orders at almost the same time, the company has an option of using one autonomous vehicle to reach to the customers. However, a challenge comes when it comes to the collection of the ordered goods. Some customers can find this as an opportunity to steal from the company or other customers. Through the use of authentication systems, customers will be required to provide proof that they are the legitimate customers who ordered the goods.

Notably, the goods ordered by the customers will be sealed in a box that demands authentication for it to open. Multi-factor authentication forces one to provide at least two evidence that he/she is the legitimate person to access the device (Ometov et al., 2018). Therefore, there can be the use of a password and a fingerprint before the customer is given the goods. Thus, the organization must urge all its customers to avail their fingerprints for the development of the system. Additionally, the company must consider developing strong passwords that include at least eight characters combined with different characters and symbols such as #,@, and*.

Furthermore, where there is a discovery of new knowledge, mainly in the field of science and technology, companies must be quick to improve their systems as it provides an innovation opportunity. The sources of innovation opportunities branch directly from technological and scientific breakthroughs (Pitcher, 2017). Businesses must therefore put much value on such technological and scientific discoveries. Notably, a business that refuses to adopt new changes inspired by new technological advancement is doomed to fail. Since its invention in 1956, AI technologies have been used by many organizations in improving is security systems as AI technologies can assist in detecting and fighting hackers.

More importantly, the use of the technology can be of great benefit for Flowspace Company as it can also be applied to transport systems leading to improved safety of goods to be transported in addition to improved efficiency. Although autonomous vehicles have attracted much attention, the power of using artificial intelligence in the transport system by far beats autonomous vehicles (Conde and & Twinn, 2019). The use of AI in the transport sector can enhance safety, reliability, and predictability (Conde and & Twinn, 2019). Therefore, where the company in question decides to adopt the use of AI to enhance the customer experience.

On reliability and predictability, the use of AI in the transportation of goods to the customers improves because it can forecast arrival and departure times (Conde and & Twinn, 2019). In the delivery of goods to customers, providing real-time and accurate information concerning transit time increases customer satisfaction mainly because goods ordered will reach them with the utmost ease and untampered with. Furthermore, concerning efficiency, the use of AI technologies in the transportation of goods to the desired locations is enhanced. Artificial intelligence helps in the optimization of movements, which in turn, maximizes efficiency (Conde and & Twinn, 2019). In this case, internet-related technologies get to be applied to the supply and demand chain, which also incorporates the use of AI in different ways, including matching shippers with parties who provide service delivery. Therefore, reliability and predictability, in addition to efficiency, is enhanced where Flowspace Company deploys the use of Artificial Intelligence in its transport system.

Therefore, as the company has been among the most innovative companies, it must keep directing its efforts towards improving the delivery of its services to remain competitive. One way in which this is done is through the adoption and use of diverse kinds of technologies. For example, through the use of autonomous vehicles, the company can deliver goods ordered by customers to their location with the utmost ease, more particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. With the use of such technologies, customer safety will have been enhanced in addition to providing them will all they need right at their doorstep. Additionally, the use of AI technologies works towards improving the efficiency of transport services. Therefore, its use allows customers to receive their goods at a specified time because the use of AI in transportation operates under specified arrival and departure time.

References

Bar-Zeev, A., Beckman, B. C., Buchmueller, D., Dunn, S. G., & Kimchi, G. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,786,187. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Conde and, M. L., & Twinn I. (2019, November). How Artificial Intelligence is Making Transport Safer, Cleaner, More Reliable and Efficient in Emerging Markets. Retrieved from https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/7c21eaf5-7d18-43b7-bce1-864e3e42de2b/EMCompass-Note-75-AI-making-transport-safer-in-Emerging-Markets.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=mV7VCeN

FastCompany, F. (2020, May 6). The fulfillment platform of the future. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90497087/the-fulfillment-platform-of-the-future

Info Entrepreneurs. (n.d.). Use innovation to grow your business. Retrieved from https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/

Inside Small Business. (2020, July 24). COVID-19 has forced businesses to take e-Commerce seriously. Retrieved from https://insidesmallbusiness.com.au/featured/covid-19-has-forced-businesses-to-take-e-commerce-seriously

Ometov, A., Bezzateev, S., Mäkitalo, N., Andreev, S., Mikkonen, T., & Koucheryavy, Y. (2018). Multi-factor authentication: A survey. Cryptography, 2(1), 1.

Pitcher. (2017, September 21). Peter F Drucker's seven sources of innovative opportunity. Retrieved from https://thepitcher.org/peter-f-druckers-seven-sources-innovative-opportunity/