CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: BAKHRESA GROUP OF COMPANIES –TANZANIA

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This assignment looks at the all innovation aspects involved in the influence of the Bakhresa Group of Companies expansion in the East African region and beyond. The assignment considers the position of the company in relation to its environment at this current time and offers possible innovation aspect solutions to its growth possibilities. It has grown out of the need for a strategic look of the company at this time of global change and seeks to find out what the position of the company will be in the future.

The work done of this assignment generated from main five questions that have been asked here in this assignment, and answers of each question have been discussed, The questions involved in this assignment as following:

1.Bakhresa Identify the strand of organisation structure and innovation approach used by the group. Is it ‘organic’ or ‘mechanistic’ structure followed by the bakhresa group? Which one is more suitable to innovation and why?

2.How can bakhresa group manage the tension between the need for creativity and efficiency?

3.Discuss the main organisational characteristics that facilitate the innovation process in the bakhresa group.

4.Explain the key individual roles within the innovation process and the activities they perform in the ipp group.

5.How did bakhresa group establish innovative environment that propagates the virtuous circle of innovation? Explain its features

2.0 BACKGROUND OF BAKHRESA GROUP

Said Salim Bakhresa & Co.’s and Bakhresa Food Products are a collection of companies each of which is part of a whole that forms the Bakhresa group. It has steadily been expanding its borders from Tanzania to the neighbouring countries and has been gaining a lot of market force over time. Countries operated in currently are:Tanzania, Malawi. Uganda, and Zanzibar

This group of companies has specialised in undertaking certain projects in the neighbouring projects while at home, in Tanzania, it has diversified into the making and distribution of various products. Products made include the following: Maize flour, White bran for livestock, Biscuits, Bread (white, brown), Puratha (chapati) Ready to drink beverages

It has also invested in the operation of a marine service that has tours to and from the island of Zanzibar. The main offices are on the mainland coast of Dar-es-Salaam where one can process tickets and further information necessary for future trip

3.0 REVIEW OF ENTREPRENEURRSHIP AND INNOVATION

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Gibb and Hannon (2006) have defined entrepreneurship as a way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that results in the creation, enhancement, realization, and renewal of value for an individual, group, organization, and society. At the heart of this process is the creation or recognition of opportunities followed by the will and intuitive to seize the opportunities.

Hisrich and Peters (2001) Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something different with value by devoting the necessary time and efforts, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risks, and receiving rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction and independence.

Entrepreneurship involves the creation process – creating something new of value. The creation has to have value to the entrepreneur and value to the society for which it is developed. Entrepreneurship requires the devotion of the necessary time and effort. and involves assuming the necessary risks. These risks take a variety of forms depending on the field, but generally risks centre around: Financial, Psychology, and Social areas.

Also entrepreneurship involves rewards such as: High degree of independence- freedom from constraints, Get to use a variety of skills and talents

INNOVATION

Innovation can be defined as utilization of inventions to produce new and better quality of products that give greater satisfaction to the consumer and high profits to the entrepreneur.

Innovation is the management of all the activities involved in the process of idea generation, technology development, manufacturing and marketing of a new (or improved) product or manufacturing process or equipment.

Innovation is the successful implementation of novel and appropriate ideas (creativity) within an organization.

Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organizations can be distilled into five types: Poor goal definition, Poor alignment of actions to goals, Poor participation in teams, Poor monitoring of results and Poor communication and access to information

Inventions are new discoveries, new ways of doing things and that products are the eventual outputs form the inventions, that process from new discovery to eventual product is the innovation process.

Innovation as a process and not as a single event within organizations helps individuals who define problems, have ideas and perform creative linkages and associations that lead to inventions. Moreover, within organizations it is individuals in the role of managers who decide what activities should be undertaken, the amount of resources to be deployed and how they should be carried out. This has led to the development of so-called key individuals in the innovation process such as inventor, entrepreneur, business sponsor etc.

Amabile et al. (1996) propose:

“All innovation begins with creative ideas . . . We define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second”.

For innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required: the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference, resulting for example in new or altered business processes within the organization, or changes in the products and services provided.

4.0 ORGANISATION STRUCTURE AND INNOVATION

QUESITON 1

Identify the strand of organization structure and innovation approach used by the bakhresa group.is it ‘organic’ or ‘mechanistic’ structure followed by the bakhresa group?

INNOVATION IN BAKHRESA group

Bakhresa Group applying innovation has linked to performance of different and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality competitive positioning, market share etc.

Innovation helps a Bakhresa Group business house to survive when the winds of change hinted the market caused by economic and social fluctuation of their environment; in fact Innovation has been used by Bakhresa Group as the process of conceptualizing an idea and then transforming an idea into a product/service. This leads the Bakhresa Group to develop and expand their activities in different parts of Tanzania and beyond neighbor countries.

Bakhresa Group has successed by having a number of different disciplines such as commercial scanner, project leader contribute to understanding of the innovation process. Firms involved in Group they do not operate in vacuum. They trade with each other; they work together in some areas and compete in others. The role of some other firms is a major factor in understanding innovation.

Organizational behavior of the Bakhresa Group had an important role on playing to understand and implement activities which has been necessary to ensure success. Significant discoveries and innovations have been associated with Bakhresa Group .

ORGANISATION STRUCTURE AND INNOVATION APPROACH USED BY THE BAKHRESA GROUP

The structure of an organization is define by Mintzberg (1978) as the sum total of the ways in which it divides its labour into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them. There have been numerous useful studies exploring the link between organizational structure and innovative performance.

‘Organic’ versus ‘Mechanistic’ Organisational structures:-

Organic

Mechanistic

1,0

Channels of ?Communication

Open with free information flow throughout the organization

Highly structured, restricted information flow

2.0

Operating styles

Allowed to vary freely

– Must be uniform and

restricted

3.0

Authority for decisions

Based on the expertise of the individual

– Based on formal line

management position

4.0

Free Adaptation

By the organization to changing circumstance

– Reluctant Adaptation

5.0

Emphasis on getting things done

unconstrained by formally laid down procedures

– Emphasis on formally laid

down procedures

6.0

Loose informal control

with emphasis on norm of cooperation

– Tight control

7.0

Flexible on-job behaviour

permitted to be shaped by the requirement

– Constrained on-job behaviour

8.0

Decision Making

participation and group consensus

– Only superiors make decisions

Source: Trott P.,(2004) Innovation Management and New Product Development.

Mechanistic organization tends to offer a less suitable environment for managing the creativity and the innovation process.

Organization Structures vis-à-vis Innovation

Formalisation

There is some evidence of an inverse relationship between formalization and innovation. That is an increase in formalization of procedures will result in a disease in innovative activity.

Complexity

Where these are several different type of professional groups are working in an organization, it would represent a complex organization

Centralisation

It refers to the decision making activity and the location of power within an organization. In a decentralized organization fewer levels of hierarchy are usually required: This tends to lead to more responsive decision making cleser to the action.

Organisational Size

A small business with fewer employees differs significantly on terms of resources from an organization which is big size is a proxy variable for more meaningful dimensions such as economic and organization resources, including number of employees.

ANALYISIS OF BAKHRESA GROUP

The structure of Bakhresa Group controlled by the activities had performed by company under mechanistic structure caused by division of labours and their tasks, Innovation has being made up of a series of linked activities within a group. The environment of mechanistic has been offered less suitable condition for develop of innovation in Bakhresa Group Business.

The culture of the Bakhresa Group is mechanistic structure are characterized as following:

The channel of communication is highly structured,

In organization structure based in MECHANISTIC, There is restricted information flow, there is no any free chance for information to pass from inside to outside of organization or vice versa.

Bakhresa Group under mechanistic structure have been applying implication of restrict information flow with other companies. They making their information have secret issue within Bakhresa Group business and they had not allowed receipt of any information from outside that could influence changes within Group business.

Operating styles are uniform and restricted.

Bakhresa Group operating their activities under uniform and restricted styles, this style leads the operations being unique by influenced of the ability of making analysis of produce consistent quality products from different entities located in different areas to ensure high level of satisfaction needs to customers spread over, not only, in Tanzania but also in the neighboring countries where their business activities are operate.

Authority for decision

Based on formal line management position, the authority decisions taken by Bakhresa Group has depend on how it had being reviewed by managers and directors by following steps between low position up to highest position which has been undertaking into the particular organization and seems they can contribute positive results. After being reviewed, the authority for decisions for to be implemented must also proposed by the managers up to the top manager.

The management is reluctant to adapt changing circumstances.

Change management affects organizational behavior. Because those behaviors are rooted in emotional and psychological responses, leaders and managers of Bakhresa group find them difficult to manage. They understanding that there is an underlying consistency to many of these behaviors help demystify them so they can be proactively managed. Effective change management strategies incorporate an understanding of these common behaviors in deciding change initiative priorities, scope and scheduling, and they include explicit activities to manage the phases of these cycles as they occur throughout the change execution process

Which one between mechanistic and organic is more suitable to innovation and why?

It suggests that organic is more suitable to innovation, this organic is flexible structure, characterized by the absence of formality and hierarchy, support innovation more effectively than do mechanistic structures. The latter are characterized by long chains of command, rigid work methods, strict task differentiation, extensive procedure and well defined hierarchy. Nevertheless, flexible rather than mechanistic organizational structures are still seen, especially within the business management literature as necessary for successful industrial innovation, In general, an organic organization is more adaptable, more openly communicating, more consensual and more loosely controlled. The mechanistic organization tends to offer a less suitable environment for managing creativity and the innovation process.

5.0 CREATIVITY AND EFFICIENCY

QUESTION 2

How can bakhresa group manage the tension between the need for creativity and efficiency?

.

Bakhresa Group managing the tension between the need for creativity and efficiency has been categories as following:

Efficiency gains within the bakhresa Group

The efficient day to day operations within company have been conducted by application of stable routines which had been achieved in stable and controlled environments in.

Creativity gains within the Bakhresa Group

Creativity can be defined as the process of developing an original product, service or idea that makes a socially recognized contribution

The development of new products/services requires creativity and room to try out new ideas this is achieved in a loose and flexible environment

The creativity supported with actions and resources with the time to be creative: organization can try to build sufficient slack into the system to allow for creative thinking and tolerates errors and mistakes and successful ideas need to be rewarded

However the long-term economic growth within Bakhresa depends on the ability of firms to make improvements to products and manufacturing processes. The firms has need to make room for creativity and innovation, that is, allow slack in the system. These then is the dilemma: how do firms try to reduce costs and slack to improve competitiveness on the one hand and then try to provide slack for innovation on the other?

Bakhresa Group done balancing: the working to ensure there is a constant pressure to drive down costs and improve efficiency in its operations. At the same time it needs to provide room for new product development and improvements to be made the most obvious way forward is to separate production from r & d. However there are many improvements and innovations that arise out of the operations of the firm.

6.0 ORGANISATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

QUESTION 3

Discuss The Main Organisational Characteristics That Facilitate The Innovation Process In The Bakhresa Group.

Process innovation means the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method (including significant changes in techniques, equipment and/or software). Minor changes or improvements, an increase in production or service capabilities through the addition of manufacturing or logistical systems which are very similar to those already in use, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customisation,regular seasonal and other cyclical changes, trading of new or significantly improved products are not considered innovations. innoviscop.

The main organizational characteristics that facilitate the innovation process in the Bakhresa Group as following:

Growth orientation;- long term grow rather than short term profit.

It is characterized by a commitment to long-term growth rather than short-term profit. Not all companies’ first and foremost objective is growth. Some companies are established merely to exploit a short-term opportunity, other companies would like to maintain the company at its existing size: the objective of innovative companies is to grow the business the actively plan for the long-term.

ANALYSIS OF BAKHRESA GROUP

Bakhresa Group started in a humble manner with a small restaurant in the Port City of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in mid seventies, it has now emerged as a respected business group in the Region. The Group has its operations spread in Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and most recently in Mozambique. Plans are in place to spread its wings to other countries. The group now boasts of a turnover of more than Three Hundred Million United Sates Dollars and is a proud employer of more than two thousand employees associated directly. There are several companies under its umbrella and have investments mainly in Food and Beverage Sector, Packaging, Logistics and Real Estate

Bakhresa Group has been working to expand their business by long term growth by emphasis long term vision and making implementation of it, those implications have been taken a long time, and some of them are still need a time to be implemented. Bakhresa succeed to making steps on growth of the manufactures of Food and Beverage Sector, Packaging, Logistics and Real Estate, product, which leads to the expand of branch company in different parts in Tanzania and beyond Tanzania.Bakhresa offers two groups of product and services: Food & Beverages and Services.

Commitment to technology

It is characterized by the willingness to invest in the long-term development of technology. Bakhresa Group has exhibit patience in permitting ideas to geminate and develop overtime. this needs to be accompanied by a commitment to resources in terms of intellectual input without a long-term approach it would be extremely difficult for the company to attract good scientists. Eg: Azam Bakeries Company Ltd

Azam Bakeries, the largest bakery in Tanzania, produces the popular Azam brand bread, cakes and donuts. The state of the art technology is used for producing the bakery products making the company proud of supplying essential food in the country.

It has a modern biscuit factory producing the finest varieties of biscuits. Many varieties of biscuits such as Chai, Creams, Glucose, Coconut, Nice, Marie, and Shortcake are popular in the country.The plant and equipment consists of the latest technology from Italy and has a high capacity automatic packing system capable of producing up to 300packets per minute.

Vigilance

It is characterized by the ability of the organization to be aware of its threats and opportunities. vigilance requires continual external scanning e.g. within the marketing function the activity would form part of market research and competitor analysis collecting valuable information is one thing, but relaying it to the necessary individuals and acting on it are two necessary associated requirements.

Bakhresa Group has working to ensure that they got all external knowledge by doing analysis and researches that has been helping to known new strategic which required to be implemented for the results of achieving goals.

Bakhresa Group has being faced with some opportunities and threats as indicated below:

Opportunities

Appreciation for high-quality local produced raw material such as maize, mills

The new generation of individuals and companies has a far greater positive reception of domestic produced starch

Current drive by government through the Tanzania Investment Centre and EPZ towards export of locally manufactured agricultural products

Current government motive of Kilimo kwanza to promote agro-production

Presence of export opportunities such as AGOA, SADCC, EAST AFRICA COMMUNITY, COMESA, etc

Climate that favors large scale production of raw material throughout our country

Raw material such as rice, maize, mill production initiatives that have started to emerge in different regions in Tanzania

Availability of cheap manpower and fertile land for raw material production locally such as maize, white 

Threats

The present growth in the market may result in market saturation, through competition. This competition could emerge from a variety of given sources including;Established mass market companies that imports

Development of new lines and vertically integrating so as to be totally in control of supplies and products being sold on the respective markets

New marketing strategies and tactics by established products and companies

Existing competition.

Intolerable price increases by foreign suppliers may occur

Farmers may decide to take their produce for food in case of hunge

7.0 INDIVIDUAL ROLES WITHIN THE INNOVATION PROCESS

QUESITON 4

Explain The Key Individual Roles Within The Innovation Process And The Activities They Perform In The Bakhresa Group.

Innovation process is essentially a people process and that organizational structure, formal decision making processes, delegation of authority and other formal aspects of a so-called well run company are not necessary conditions for successful technological innovation. The study of Rubenstein has revealed that certain individuals had fulfilled a variety of roles that had contributed to successful technological innovation.

Here’s the list of roles individual playing within Bakhresa Group facilitate the innovation process by engages;-

Commercial scanner:

This individual acquires vast amounts of information from outside the organization, often through net working. This may include market and technical information.

Bakhresa Group have been working in finding and making analysis of the information from other successful same companies which operate the same products. The access of new ideas could the very

Gatekeeper:

This individual keeps informed of related developments that occur outside the organization through journals, conferences, colleagues and other companies. Passes information on to others, finds it easy to talk to colleagues. Serves as an informatted resource for others in the organization.

Project leader:

This individual provides the team with leadership and motivation. Plans and organizes the project ensures that administrative requirements are met. Provides necessary coronation among team members sees that Project moves forward effectively. Balances project goals with organizational needs.

Examine and analyze the project for patterns to determine what is and is not working and help you tune your process so it’s most efficient and so you understand where to focus your resources on opportunities and to correct problems.

Sponsor:

This individual provides access to a power base within the Bakhresa Group: a senior person. Buffers the Project team from unnecessary organizational constraints. Helps the project team too get what it needs from other parts of the organization. Provides legitimacy and organizational confidence in the project.

Here’s the another addition list of roles individual playing in innovation process and: 2005 (innovationtools)

Connectors

A key element of innovation is building bridges to connect distant worlds-industries beyond your own-to generate new products/services and building networks to connect

people to create and distribute the new offering. Combining these attributes with several

other characteristics results in what we call a Connector.

Connectors have these characteristics:

Are a mile wide and an inch deep. Connectors have the ability to connect departments, organizations, and industries that normally would not be connected. Although they may be an expert in their own field, Connectors are generally people you’d describe as a mile wide and an inch deep. They know things about a variety of fields and industries and can connect them.

Are one degree separated. Think of the person or people you know who can get anything through the system. They know the person in the mailroom who can expedite getting things delivered fast, they know the administrative assistants that wield the power, and they know the person in purchasing who can order the thingamabob you need. They know everyone inside and outside the organization and can connect you with them.

Build networks. Connectors build networks. Their ability to do so means that once an idea has been captured and evaluated (or even during evaluation), they can help you build the network of people to deliver the offering.

Jump the tracks. Connectors can jump the tracks, making connections with other people, industries, technologies, ideas, distribution, partners-and they bring others along-which is critical. Because they connect with people, they have the ability to get others to see the benefits for jumping the track.

Skyscrape. Connectors, because of their position or people they know in key positions, can easily get or make connections to the upper reaches of an organization.

It’s likely that you will need several Connectors, since not everyone has all the characteristics above. The person who knows how to work the internal system is usually not a skyscraper-they usually work behind the scenes. That’s ok. It’s likely the Connectors you identify will know each other already. Here’s what the Connector can do for your innovation initiative: create connections to other people and technologies within your organization, and connect you to customers and business partners who can help you outside your organization. Connectors dramatically reduce the time to find the appropriate connections and improve the chance you’ll make a valuable connection.

Librarian

The Librarian holds the key position of collecting ideas and providing organized access to others who can help build the library and make sense of the current collection. The Librarian provides an easy way to check in, check out (as in examine), and add to ideas,

solutions, problems, technologies, and needs. Think of a library where you can write in the books or write your own books, put them back on the shelf, and allow others to do the

same.

Librarians have these characteristics. Librarians:

Define the “meta-data”. Librarians determine what information is important to capture about an idea. Librarians determine what information is necessary to capture about an idea and to evaluate it. They determine the formats for the information.

Help store and retrieve information. As the number of ideas grows, so does the

complexity of storing, finding and retrieving information about those ideas.

Help others help themselves. The capture of information, storage, searching and information retrieval should be a self-help mechanism. A good librarian works themselves out of a job.

Here’s what the Librarian can do for your innovation initiative: define a consistent data model to help document and capture your ideas. Provide the meta-data and information tags to search and find ideas, and ensure easy retrieval. Help others in the team and associated with the team find information and add to it.

Framer

The Framer works with business functions and management to determine the appropriate

evaluation schemes and frameworks teams should use to evaluate ideas fairly, transparently and consistently. The Framer:

Understands where the organization is trying to go. The strategic direction is critical in evaluating ideas, because new products and services will dictate how fast and far the organization can go in that direction. All evaluations must be made relevant to that direction.

Understands who needs to be involved to make the evaluation meaningful. If key individuals or groups are left out of the evaluation, the idea may fail in execution because a key element is missing. Absent heads mean absent hands.

The evaluation should include everyone who will be involved in executing and no more. The Framer needs to make sure all heads, hearts, and hands are accounted for in the evaluation process.

Understands the need for transparency. Contributors need to understand the evaluation process and the rationale behind it. This will help ensure that ideas are contributed because contributors understand the process is fair; it will also help contributors provide information to make the evaluation easier.

Understands how an idea should be evaluated. Different classes of ideas needto be evaluated different ways, but within those classes ideas should be evaluated consistently and in a way that allows ideas to be compared against each other so that the desired portfolio may be achieved.

Here’s what the Framer can do for your innovation initiative: construct the evaluation

frameworks which your team will use to evaluate your ideas, and ensure the evaluations

are consistent and transparent.

Judge

The Judge evaluates the ideas, using the Framer’s framework. Generally speaking there are many “Judges” for any idea – often representing business functions (sales, marketing,

R&D), regions or other business silos. Judges follow the evaluation criteria set by the Framers, who worked with all the entities involved in setting the evaluation framework.

Judges have these characteristics. Judges:

Evaluate ideas and determine which ideas should move forward to prototyping, which should be tabled until an internal or external criteria is met (e.g., good idea when the price of memory falls to one dollar per terabyte), and which should be shelved.

Provide the verdict on which ideas merit further investigation and development by the organization.

Document their decisions for posterity. Too often decisions are made about initiatives and ideas, and those decisions are not documented. Eventually the idea will be considered again. Without the documentation for the decision, a team may be forced to reconsider an idea that was previously rejected.

Here’s what a Judge can do for your innovation initiative: evaluate the idea against a standard framework and ensure all the business functions responsible for the idea have weighed in. Establish a verdict on the idea, to move the idea into production, end evaluation of the idea, license the idea to someone else or continue evaluation until conditions change. Document the rationale for the decision so that others can understand why the idea was approved or why it failed the evaluation.

Prototyper

Many organizations are comfortable with their new product development (NPD) process.

Once they know what to make or offer they are pretty efficient at producing it. The problem they have is how to capture ideas and evaluate them. The people identified above fulfill this need; however, a key glue person you must have is the Prototyper. Between evaluation and development there is an iterative process-the Prototyper is the

master who makes rapid prototyping a reality. Prototypers rapidly create bare bones versions of your product or service. Their goal is to create enough of the user experience so that real live customers can work with the offering and provide key feedback.

Prototypers have these characteristics. Prototypers:

Enjoy building mockups and “strawmen”. They understand the temporary value of the prototype and how powerful a physical representation of the solution can be to drive new requirements or customer acceptance

Are comfortable iterating and building successive prototypes. Often an early prototype leads to requirements or needs that were not previously uncovered, which leads to the need for a new prototype.

Are good listeners. People who build prototypes need empathy with the customer and their needs. They need to translate what they hear the customer saying (and not saying) into a tangible representation of the product or service.

Can handle the ejection seat. A key function of prototyping is to rapidly identify what works and what doesn’t. Prototypers can handle their role of allowing the organization to fail forward-to recognize and jettison ideas that are unlikely to succeed and thus save valuable time and money that would have been spent developing them.

Here’s what the Prototyper can do for your innovation initiative: provide a representation

of the idea (product or service) to the customer very quickly for feedback and further tuning. Iterate until the representation matches the customer needs and expectations. Significantly reduce the likelihood that you’ll miss a key customer requirement or pursue

an idea that will flounder.

Metric Monitor

You get what you measure. If you want your organization to innovate, you have to establish what you will measure to make sure this happens. These metrics range from quantitative, such as time from idea submission to launch, to qualitative, such as what was learned from a failing. Metrics should apply to each person, each unit, each division,

all the way through the entire organization.

The Metric Monitor fulfills this role in two ways: monitoring the metrics and suggesting

new metrics and new patterns of operating based on the results of the metrics. In the beginning of your innovative initiative, the Metric Monitor can define easy to measure metrics to get you started: number of ideas submitted, time from submission to evaluation, time spent on innovation, etc. As you move forward, you also need the Metric Monitor to adjust the metrics based on the organization’s progress and processes. In addition to defining the metrics, the Metric Monitor examines successes and failures in your innovation process. They recognize patterns of what works and what traditionally hasn’t. The more patterns they see, the better your organization will be at identifying vmfactors that help you innovate better as Metric Monitors.

Work with the management team to set achievable goals for innovation.

Innovation is a process, and should be measured and managed like a process. The management team should set reasonable goals and measure results against the goals.

Establish metrics for measuring your innovation process (e.g., how many ideas are being captured, what are the long and short poles in the evaluation process, what types of prototypes are helping fail forward faster, what sources of ideas are leading to the most likely to succeed.

Examine and analyze the metrics for patterns to determine what is and is not

working and help you tune your process so it’s most efficient and so you understand where to focus your resources on opportunities and to correct problems.

Create new patterns from observing successes and failures

Fill this role with someone who embraces change and can handle incomplete data. Find them by looking for people who like change and like to measure things. They, like the Prototyper, will need to work with incomplete information, begin to draw conclusions, and constantly update their conclusions based on new information.Here’s what the Metric Monitor can do for your innovation initiative: They will help you establish metrics, measure the results, and find patterns in your organization for successfully Innovating on Purpose.

Storyteller

The Storyteller is one of the most valuable roles in the organization. The Storyteller’s responsibility is to collect, keep, and tell stories about the organization. People respond to stories better than any other method of communication. Humans are wired this way- for the majority of our history this is how we kept and passed along records. We value relationships, experiences, and stories more than bulleted facts and mind-numbing spreadsheets. The Storyteller will help you achieve a culture of innovation, especially in the area of allowing people to fail.

Storytellers have these characteristics. Storytellers:

Provide communication that matters to people. They are the record keepers that influence how people view the organization and themselves within it. If you want to effect change in your organization to help innovate, you need Storytellers to keep help people really get what’s important and to help them make an emotional connection.

Reinforce the corporate culture. Storytellers reinforce the culture by relating existing situations to instances in the near and recent past and what the organization did to succeed.

Create an emotional connection to an abstract process. Innovation requires something more than most business processes – a belief system. Here’s what the Storyteller can do for your innovation initiative: remind people of what’s important, and reinforce the corporate culture.

Scout

An important role in the identification of new trends and the analysis of those trends and

the impacts they may have on your business is held by the Scout.

Scouts scan the future to understand how the industry is likely to change. What are the scenarios we might face? What technologies are in development that may affect our business? What might a competitor do that would upset our position in the market? What is hot in other industries that we might adapt? What are customers doing with our offerings? What are they doing with our competitor’s offerings?

Additionally, Scouts have an active role. They meet with customers, partners, vendors and industry influencers to obtain insight into the market and market trends. Scouts aggregate and synthesize this information to bring back to the team for further analysis.

Scouts have these characteristics. Scouts:

Read voraciously and network with others. Scouts are very curious and gather data both in the same industry and outside of it. They observe customers in action. They also know the strategic direction of your organization and what drives it. Generally they are in a management position with external focus.

Stay abreast of the latest trends and fads. They know what products and technologies are cool before you’ve heard of them.

Draw conclusions about the convergence or divergence of trends. Scouts understand what’s important and what’s noise in the trends.

Here’s what the Scout can do for your innovation initiative: define what’s happening, and what’s likely to happen, in your market and in tangential markets before it happens.

Help you and your team understand what trends are important and should be considered

as part of an innovation process.

Insourcing versus Outsourcing

At this point you may say to yourself, “I can’t find all of the individuals with these skills and capabilities in my organization. Should I simply move ahead without them?” Well, possibly. First, however, consider whether or not you can outsource some of the roles. Several of the roles can be easily outsourced. The Scout role, for example, can be taken on by any of a number of trend watching firms. Sometimes you may want to outsource a role to ensure that there is no bias in the decision making process. You may find it easier and simpler for the Judge to be a consultant or third party not involved in the day to day decision making. Another role that can be easily outsourced to a trusted partner is the Prototyper role. There are a number of firms that can provide these skills and integrate with your process.

Some roles, however, are simply too important and too integrated in the process to outsource. The Connectors, Librarians and Framers are roles that should definitely be taken on by people within your organization. It will be difficult if not impossible to find people who can understand your organization and its culture to the extent necessary to fill these roles and the Story Teller role from outside the organization. All of these roles are critical to a successful, repeatable innovation initiative, but, if you must do without some of these roles, then by all means ensure that you have a good Librarian, to help people record and recall ideas, strong Connectors to span the organization and bring people and ideas together, and Framers to build the appropriate evaluation criteria.

THE VIRTUOUS CIRCLE OF INNOVATION

QUESTION 5

How did bakhresa group establish innovative environment that propagates the virtuous circle of innovation? Explain its features.

Bakhresa Group highlighted the role of its organizational environment in the innovation process through implication of virtuous circle of innovation, also it show different factors/ features influence this environment. These factors are shown clear by the helper of the virtuous circle shown below:

Propagating a Virtuous circle of innovation

Source: Trott P(2008) Innovation Management and New Product Development

Reputation of the Organization

Bakhresa Group has been working on Reputation of the Organization stability and static routines to accomplish the daily tasks efficiently and quickly. It took many years to develop this situation but they are achieving to make a step. It was strongly linked to overall performance. And leads to achieve wide exposure of new products or new research.

Bakhresa Group also needs to develop new ideas.

Many organizations suffer from an inability to implement changes and new ideas even after rewarding the people involved in developing those ideas. Once a new product idea has been accepted it is important that it is carried through to completion.

Bakhresa Group should develop new ideas which will generate positive result on daily activities conducted by the Bakhres aGroup. This emphasized when done when management of Bakhresa will accept and encourage flow of management.

New products to be competitive in future

Bakhresa Group should produce the new products which will highly satisfaction to the consumers. Then will developing new products that are genuine improvements compared with products currently available.

It needs to nurture a creative environment where ideas can be tested and developed.

The creativity has to be supported with actions and resources with the time to be creative: Bakhresa Group should try to build sufficient slack into the system to allow for creative thinking and tolerates errors and mistakes and successful ideas need to be rewarded

Finding a nurturing environment for the creative curiosity people within Bakhresa Group exhibits naturally is likely one of the best ways to stimulate creativity that will ever lay down for business goal. The thing to remember is whatever you do you are trying to set your curiosity to active mode.

Setting up a nurturing environment for being creative, it involve zero in on the act of actually creating something and focus our efforts on making that time and space ideal. So workplace may be perfect, but if that is all Group are looking at, it won’t have quite enough. it neglect the parts we need to stimulate creativity inside of Bakhresa Group. It need to rev up our creative curiosity and to do this needs to look much further out.

9.0 CONCLUSION

Unlike a lot of existing business processes, innovation is still in its infancy as a process that brings effectiveness and efficiency in any individual, group, institution deals with generates Income as well focused on Profit.

Therefore can make conclusion conclude by say that Bakhresa Group has been achieving to making distribution of their businesses as well as expand of with innovation aspects that influencing long term growth of Bakhresa Group products in different parts of Tanzania and beyond the country after business environment linked. And active environment emphases innovation process is dependent on people rather than systems or metrics to drive it forward.

Also, unlike other processes, innovation requires a commitment and a belief system in

order to succeed. After all, I don’t have to “believe” in purchasing to cut a purchase

order, but I do need to believe innovation is important and possible in order to commit

time and resources to an uncertain goal. I’ll see it when I believe it.

People are important to innovation, and the right people in the right roles are critical