Capsim Business Simulation Innovations can create a huge opportunity for success, as they enable a company to create a competitive advantage by having differentiated products, services or business models. Hence an innovative strategy is highly recommended in order to achieve high business growth, in case you are willing to expose you to a higher degree of risk.
Being successful with an innovative strategy requires a multidimensional approach and an integrative strategic management. This content is highlighted from a theoretical point of view and confirmed by my personal experiences in the business simulation game capsim.
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Write My Essay For MeHowever the financial performance after round 4 is worse than the competition, double digit growth in sales and a market share of more than twenty percent in the three fastest growing segments has been achieved. The main experiences can be concluded as follows: For being a successful market leader it is not sufficient to reach double-digit growth, instead you have to keep an eye on the competition and have to achieve higher growth rates than the competitors. We will write a custom essay sample on Capsim report
Vision, mission and strategic goals are important and build a guideline for every decision, but it is hard to stick to an innovative strategy, which requires high investment, in case of financial problems. Applying an innovative strategy is combined with adventure and a high exposure to risk. It can be detected that implementing an innovative strategy in real life is very complex and that small mistakes can have a negative impact in the long term. However mistakes can happen fast, as a multitude of multidimensional decisions has to be taken as an entrepreneur.
As the literature is not able to support you in the complex decision process, gathering experiences is highly recommended. Table of Contents Example Report for Task 1 I Executive Summaryi Table of Contentsii 1. Introduction3 2. Innovative strategies and high business growth3 2. 1Definitions3 2. 2Characteristic elements of an innovative strategy5 2. 3Critical success factors for implementing an innovative strategy 6 2. 4Importance of an innovative strategy for high business growth7 2. 5Risks of innovative strategies for high business growth7 3.
My innovative strategy in Capsim8 3. 1My mission, vision and strategy in Capsim8 3. 2Impact of the innovative strategy on my business decisions8 4. Achieved results in Capsim with my innovative strategy9 4. 1Quantitative and qualitative results after round 49 4. 2Assessment and explanations of the results11 5. Experiences with my innovative strategy 12 6. Conclusion13 List of references15 1. Introduction The aim of our business simulation game capsim is to reach at least double-digit growth.
According to recent literature an innovative strategy can help a company exciting its customers, outperforming competitors, building a new product portfolio and therefore it can be an important step on the way to high growth rates for a company (Bowonder et al. 2010; Stewart 2006). Such information aroused my interest and so I was motivated to find out, if and how an innovative strategy can work successfully. Consequently I decided to apply an innovative strategy in the first four rounds of capsim.
Now it is the aim of the report to present my experiences with it. Therefore my report is divided into two parts. The first part presents theoretical information about innovative strategies. It gives an idea what innovative strategy management means, how it is implemented and why it is important for business growth. Based on this knowledge, my approach is described in the second part. My original plan, the related decisions, the results and the experiences of my innovative strategy can be read there.
Thus, in the summary my experiences are concluded and a short comparison to the theory is presented. 2. Innovative strategies and high business growth 2. 1 Definitions In this section the main terms for the context are defined and explained, such as innovation and innovation management, strategy, strategic management and innovative strategies as well as business growth. 2. 1. 1 Innovation and innovation management If you are searching for a definition for innovation you can find a number of different ones.
Basically they all include the idea of creating something new. Referring this idea to business, the definition of Westland seems to be appropriate. It says an ‘innovation is a product or service with a bundle of features that is – as a whole – new in the market, or that is commercialised in some new way it opens up new users and consumer groups for it’ (Westland 2008, p. 6). According to that, innovations can occur for products, services, processes and business models (Stamm 2008).
Beside these categories, there are three different levels of innovations, depending on the degree of novelty involved: incremental innovations are minor changes. When implementing these changes, something is done in a better way than it has been already done before, so there’s nothing significantly new. Substantial innovations are mid-level in significance both to customers and to the company (Tucker 2008). Radical innovations, also known as breakthrough innovations, transform the way you think and have a big impact on the company and the customers in a whole (Tucker 2008; Bessant & Tidd
2008). Innovation isn’t a single event, it’s an extended process of picking up on ideas and turning them into reality. This process is strongly influenced by internal and external factors such as leadership, employees, culture, different stakeholders and market conditions. According to that it is the task of an innovation management to implement and encourage an integrative framework and therein a repeatable process of creating and realising ideas while considering all stakeholders and especially the strategy of a company (Igartua, Garrigos & Harvas-Oliver 2010).
The management of innovation includes tasks such as the management of technology and product-portfolios, encouraging innovative thoughts and ideas, creating a creative company culture or assuring a higher ability of implementing changes (White & Bruton 2007). Finally it is the aim of the integrative approach of innovation management to coordinate all the singular activities with regard to the strategy. 2. 1. 2 Strategy and strategic management A strategy ‘is a coordinated set of actions that fulfill a firm’s objectives, purposes and goals (White & Bruton 2007, p.
36). Accordingly strategic management is cross-functional framework, including ongoing processes of making and coordinating entrepreneurial decisions systematically with the aim of achieving the company’s goals. It includes questions about technology, innovation, the organizational structure, processes, procedures, systems, people or knowledge management. The strategic process can be divided into three main activities: planning, implementation as well as evaluation and control (White & Bruton 2007).
2. 1. 3 Innovative strategy As a consequence, it becomes clear that innovation management can be one element of the whole strategic management of a company. As innovation becomes more and more important its strategic meaning has increased. In case a company calls its strategy an innovative strategy, it supports his emphasis on including the ideas of innovation management in his strategic planning, implementation and evaluating process. 2. 1. 4 Business growth
As Achtenhagen, Naldi & Melin (2010) made clear; there are many different possibilities and ways to define business growth. According to my first approach, interpreting the given goal of achieving double digit growth in capsim, business growth should be defined as growth in sales in this paper. 2. 2 Characteristic elements of an innovative strategy During the strategic planning process the ideas of innovation have to be included in the vision, the mission as well as in the strategic and operative goals of the company (White & Bruton 2007).
For having an innovative strategy, the identification of opportunities, how customers can be impressed in an innovative way, is necessary. The result should become clear in the strategic plan. Typical opportunities can be found in market positioning, understanding customer needs, reinventing your business model or redefining the value-added for the customer (Tucker 2008). After you have made this strategic decision, you have to find out what abilities and capacities you need and what measures and instruments are necessary, for achieving your strategic goal.
Typical elements are technology management, portfolio management, project management, cycle-time management, performance measurement, organizational design, the creation of an innovative leadership and organizational culture, marketing, market research and knowledge and intellectual property management (Igartua, Garrigos & Harvas-Oliver 2010). Human resource management, external relations and financial management build the fundamental base and consequently have to be considered, as well.
All these elements have to be aligned and managed in an aggregated and superordinated way regarding the strategy, in order to achieve the goals of the company (Meyer 1998). Further characteristics of an innovative strategy are the higher involvement of creativity and adventure in the whole strategic management process as well as the higher exposure of risk (White & Bruton 2007).
2. 3 Critical success factors for implementing an innovative strategy According to Bodley-Scott (2011) it is essential that the goals of the innovation and the strategic management are adjusted, so that the whole organisation works in the sam…………
became obvious. Treacys words the ‘time to launch big innovations is not when they are necessary for your business but when they are essential to the marketplace’ (2004a, p. 30) became true in my capsim game, as I realized that it is for nothing to have a better performance or a smaller size and therewith an even more innovative product than the competition, in case it does not meet the customer buying criterias. The customer penalises small variations to their requirements at once. Hence, using the market research data and concentrating on the customer focus is essential for avoiding market risks.
According to my experience, the competition in the fast growing markets is increasing from round to round, so even the third most important buying criteria can be crucial. Deciding about product features is even harder for new innovativ……………..
