Creativity in Organization (Apple)

Apple Co can be indentified as a leader of creativity and innovation in global business environments. From early its start up it is already an innovative product line with introduction of GUI operating system that becomes envy to Microsoft to develop its own Windows later. Having financial problems in early 1990s because of declining Apple computer business, there are several rumors of bailout exist. Coming back of Steve Jobs already drive the company to be different from concentrating on PC business to become a true consumer electronics provider. There are few strategies that has transformed them to be a true leader in creativity and innovation:

• Apple ready to have something different from others even though market demand or response is not yet known. The design of iMac is innovative because it is different from conventional PC chassis design which is beige and dull black colors. It is built in translucent plastic exterior and the designer won the innovative awards for this brave move.

• Apple ready to take risk to join the fray in consumer electronics market by building IPod which happens to be best selling portable music player which is good in design, interface and acceptable pricing range. This helps to improve Apple’s sales plus the ITunes format has been instrumental to make Apple a leader in digital music downloading business. This is innovative approach of doing business as 10 years ago; Apple does not ever think it will become a major player in that area. Digital music business is big and the current cheap price will help people to drive the business and entertainment business to fight piracy as people are encourage to download originals.

• Seeing changes in world market and technology trend, Apple ready to change from norms in order to survive. Rather than focus on using Motorola or IBM processor, Intel processor has been use on Macintosh PC for better performance and suitability to current market demand. Apple knew Intel dominance and popularity is hard to beat and it choose the correct way to innovate its product line to suits Intel processor.

• Anticipating competition also drives Apple to be creative and innovate products that can help it maintain its lead. With introduction of better and larger flash memory on hand phone and so-called Nokia music phone can posed a threat to Apple’s IPod in long run. Apple began producing innovative IPhone which has both functionalities of music player and phone in one device. It is cheap and will pose competition to conventional mobile phone maker around the world.

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Creativity in Organization (Philips)

Philips Electronics is one of the world most recognized and one of the largest consumer electronics, lighting and medical systems manufacturer which originated from Holland. Employing more than 14,500 peoples around the world and has reached sales of 27 billions euro in 2006 is really an astounding large firms to operate. During the course of history since it was formed by Gerard Philips in 1861, the company has been in forefront of new technology and certain product innovation that put the name of company high in world electronics consumer market. The innovations from Philips really change the way we enjoy, the way we live and the way we use this innovation in our daily life. Most notable products innovation from Philips is the compact cassette, compact disk and digital video disk. Few strategies that were used in Philips to make the true leader of creativity and innovation today are:

Constant improvement to current products

Philips is already a pioneer since 1963 as the first European company to do audio compact cassette as a media for audio storage. This is the important invention that popularizes the entertainment industry as cassette can record more efficiently that LP. Compact cassette is smaller and easier to bring than magnetic tape drive and introduction of complement products such as walkman has make this is the standard format in industry. While compact cassette still enjoys a popular success in the world in 1980s, Philips begins to improve the products even though it may end up cannibalizing its own current successful product. Philips collaborates with Sony to produce compact disk which has bigger storage and better audio quality retention and it becomes a popular music media surpassing compact cassette sales revenue now.

Focus on complementary
Philips focuses on dual use technology which is important and can be sold in 2 market segment. For example is introduction of compact disk and compact disk player by Philips. By introducing compact disk, Philips is also joining into production of compact disk player which is essential for its revenues. Dual use technology is good because Philips still can focus on its core technology royalty payment (CD) lets say it fail in CD player market thus it can still generating income for long term.

Philips Innovative Campus
The campus will be important to enhance and driving force behind the Philips innovation strategy that is significant for business growth and revenues opportunities. The design and product realization facilities are integrate into Philips business models.

Drive for technological leader.
Being a technological leader in new technology will enable us earning hefty amount of returns in copyrights. For example is the introduction of compact disk where Philips and Sony is earning a share for every pieces produce as their copyrights payment. Royalty payment for technological leader is not compensate them for their technological breakthrough which a lot of resources, knowledge and money has been invested and this can generated a long term cash flow t Philips annually whether its business is good or not.


Creative workforce does not face age barrier.
People in Philips are encourage to excel and contribute creatively no matter what their age is because each one of us is unique and our opinion will stand if it is suitable to the market needs.

Quotes for Creativity

Michelangelo: The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.

Joseph Conrad: The mind of man is capable of anything because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future.

James Broughton: The only limits are, as always, those of vision.

Charles F. Kettering: The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.

Unknown Author: The poorest man is not without a cent, but without a dream.

John F. Kennedy: The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.

Albert Einstein: The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Dale Carnegie: The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

Thomas G. Halliburton: The suspicious parent makes an artful child.

Eden Phillpotts: The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Algernon Charles Swinburne: To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician is a possession added to the best things in life.

Truman Capote: To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.

William Blake: To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower... hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour...

George Kneller: To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.

Benjamin Disraeli: We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

Jack Welch: We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies - in the minds of those closest to the work.

Thomas Edison: What man's mind can create, man's character can control.

Albert Einstein: The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Harold R. McAlindon: The world leaders in innovation and creativity will also be world leaders in everything else.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.

Why organization need to be creative and innovative?

· Things or products will be invented, sold and one day decline in term of its sales and popularity. This is called product life cycle and a lot of technology products nowadays changes very fast to the market trends, technology development, power of advertising, and the taste of consumers. If the organizations are not having creative talents and try to innovate its current products, it may see itself shrinking in the market, revenue and potential lose to its competitors and force to shutdown. See Nokia innovation in market in its mobile phone design. Its 3310 it’s popular in Malaysia market at one time captured large slice of market due to its user-friendly feature. However Nokia keep-on innovates according to latest technology trend and may have to cannibalize its successful 3310 product to ensure its future in the long term because consumer trend is changing fast and product life cycle is short.

· Sometimes it is more on economic opportunities for organization to improve creativity and innovative. Organization need to strive for creativity and innovative because it is already reached a point where all excessive cost has been controlled, downsizing and reengineering may not have work well. So organization must try something different such as innovation in its products or services as a key to continue its sustainability in the market.

· Sometimes organization operates in highly competitive market where most products is quite identical and be replace by any of the consumers who are influence by marketing ploy, pricing, design, historical experience, after market services and other consumer behavior. For example is competitive American car market where Big 3 is competing with a lot of Japanese and Asian car maker to fight for the market. In order to compete in market, constant innovation in products, design, services and price must be place on hand to compete with other organization.

· Continuous improvement will reach a point of diminishing returns. At some point an entirely new platform or category is needed. Motorola seemed to have made this mistake by improving analog cellular phones after the market had shifted to digital technology. For example if company A is producing and improving walkman that play on cassette, it is a no future product because cassette is going to be short in life cycle as constant innovation in disk and flash based system. So in order to survive, it must be creative and innovate in new product line.

· Value and wealth creation is important to ensure a healthy return to organization and the shareholder. Raw material at the very first point is low in value but through upstream production by adding new product process will add up its value to the market. For example if Company B only do plantation of tea, it will only earn its money from selling that raw material. However if the organization creatively add up its own process such as processing the leaves and do packaging and set up own distribution channel it will earn a lot of potential income selling package teas such as Lipton rather than keep on in static manner doing only plantation.

· Sometimes organization needs creativity and innovation to revitalize itself after dampening market situation poor company performance. For example Apple Computer loosing a lot of its PC market to conventional IBM compatible PC market in 1990s. Creative approach and innovation by ex founder Steve Jobs bring the company to life and competitive by introducing newly design translucent Mac, IPod flash based music player and online songs downloading network.

· Strong creativity and innovation will be a reputable name for the organization where organization associated to these values such as Motorola, Apple, 3M and GE is said to be one of the best place to work and employees will have sense of pride in them.

· Creative drive is important to fulfill the high taste and demand from the customers which is ever changing in fast trend line.

· Creative and innovation is important to prepare the organization to face the challenge in the future, Technology is changing very fast and organization must be prepare to be a technological leader to control the market and earn healthy profits in short term. This is because technology catching up game is very fast and in long run all firms will only earn low profits if there are a lot of competitors entering the market.

· Creativity and innovative drive will push up competition and cooperation among all employees in the organization. This will prevent the employees from falling in the comfort zones.

10 barriers for creativity and innovative in organization

* Management support is important because they give direction to the whole organization. If the management does not support innovation and creativity, then it is very hard for the employees to excel. This is because some organization prefers a formal structure where employees are following rules and respect the line authority from higher lever or superior without much questioning.
* Fear of loosing the time, resources and money by buying into the ideas of new creativity or innovation is holding some organization backwards. These risk avoider organization does not want to lose to its competitors by investing into wrong direction which is the end will cause it down. For example some companies are daring to battle for differences in creativity and innovations such as Sony BluRay DVD and Toshiba HD format because they are risk taker. Winner will takes all while losers will end up losing the market and initial investment in R&D.
* Employees fear for critism and lose face. When one to introduce an ideas, the first thing we will think is other people will accept our ideas, will our ideas be seen as ridiculous and laugh by other people and how are the people going to judge us.
* No financial benefits too drive employees. Some organization does not put creativity building is one the priority in the company. They will not allocate a hefty sum of compensation to a person who drives innovation and worst of all there is no such recognition. Remember money is one of the most important factors that drive people’s desire to excel.
* No clear direction form management. Sometimes management put too many efforts in a lot of projects, creativity and innovative drive but focuses none in one of them and the success rate is questionable to the employees. Some management does not do what they actually say. At one time they may say they are encouraging creativity and at one time none at all. These put employees in the gray area do not know actual intention and direction from the management.
* Drive not to align to market. Some innovation is not necessary because it does not reflect the needs and demands from the market. Consumer does not like the products because it is not well positioned and no natter how well innovative or creative it is, without well return on investment the products will be discontinued or fail in market causing losses to the company.
* Few or no empowerment in organization because all employees must follow a strict rules and regulation, formalities and culture that the organization enforce. They cannot think or act freely and thus this will be a barrier for creativity enhancement.
* Comfort zone. When organization already achieve a certain success there will be a comforts zone for employees to develop further. All benefits, systems, business revenues and etc are at their best and employees will think there is nothing more to improve.
* No young driving force. Organization sometimes too depends on all old employees inside without recruiting any young workforce from outside. This old employees which already in comfort zone does not able to think freely like new recruits and their knowledge is not developed because they depends on old past experience and norms in doing their job.
* No training provided by organization to drive and enhance the skills and knowledge of employees in area of creativity and innovative.

10 ways to make staff in organization more creative and innovative.

* Create an open environment where all employees can meet up and share their knowledge, skills and experience during working or non working hours such as having an open system cafeteria in the company. Company can also initiate an open office systems with less cubicle or closed office type because people are more exposed to each others and have ample time to interact to each other more frequently. Allow people to go through with their ideas without going through much of the bureaucratic levels or phases in organization. This wills enhance speed of creative ideas generation and flow in the organization. For example put up a quality ideas box where employee and put suggestion in the box or the company to review it.
* Company must be generous to provide a budget for training and development in the area of creativity development such as sending employees to external training classes related to this area. Employee must be given freedom to choose their preference course titles and write their progress before and after go for the training and what they can contribute to the company.
* Organization must recognized creative ideas and talents and must reward their contributions to the company whether it is in the shape of financial gifts, moral support or public recognition. This will shows that organization is impressed with their employee success and values their contribution to the company in term of innovation, cost saving or other improvement area that is important to every party involved. Sometimes a big thank you appreciation, small tokens such as pen or a informational employee recognition poster on white boards from the top management is enough to satisfy the employees because they knew their work done is not a waste because company already recognized it.
* Free flow of information and knowledge is encourage in the organization to ensure the creative ideas are passed down, shared and analyzed to ensure its feasibility for execution in the organization. Sometimes there are creative people who are introvert or not able to express their ideas through words confidently and persuasively. Be patient with this kind of person and allocate ample time for them to develop their communication skills and on the same time during meeting give them opportunities to talk and expressing their ideas.
* Create a diverse and multi-disciplined team. Nowadays organization began to use more and more multi function teams to solve complex problems that plagued the organization. Multi functional teams consisted of experts from different background such as marketing, engineering, human resources, business, production and logistic who will come together and share their experience and knowledge from different perspective. It is important because problems are viewed in wider angle and team members can understand the market better. For example a team in designing a car can cooperate with marketing people understanding market preference; engineering people discuss on feasibility or design for manufacturing and production or its capability to produce. This will be important because if only engineers opinion are used, may be the car produced its not a taste for the market and if only marketing ideas are taken maybe the car is hard to produced because ideas from marketing people cannot be translated into engineering capabilities. Include also diversity in teams such as different races and cultures.
* Create a more loose working structure to let the employees freedom such as non uniforms requirement, flexible working hours, more relax office styles with small resting area, no language barrier, and of course less rules. These relax and flexibilities can help to ensure the people in organization are not stress by rigid and formal working environments thus enabling them to contribute for efficiently. For example in flexible hours, some people may work better after lunch while some from morning. So to utilize their best advantage working hours, employees can perform better in the organization.
* Not surprising money is one of the main motivators people work in the organization. If there is a budget to compensate for employees for providing creative ideas or works, employees will be motivated and perform even better in the future. The budget will depends on the organization financial status and organization must set a clear guideline how the money is going to be pay to deter any confusion among employees. It is better if the incentive or compensation system is based on team’s performance because it will discourage employees to seek for personal achievement, glory and attention.
* Provide a constructive clear feedback to employees’ ideas contribution whether it is a successful type or a failure. For those who fail give them a channel to improve themselves and contribute for the second time.
* Ready to recruit potential candidates from external to give new ideas as current employees are ease with their current situations and mentality is not agile to receive new things from outside the organization. This will also create a healthy competition among employees in the organization to bring out the best in them.
* Organization can give a sabbatical leave to employees as long leaves abroad can helps employee to think something new from their new sight, experience and findings at the new place.