Strategically Innovating Growth and Success ALIBABA

Question: Describe the strategically innovating growth and success at ALIBABA. Answer: Arthur Young has defined innovation as Ideas Implemented Successfully which means that profitability of an organization could only be achieved when the generated ideas are successfully implemented by the entrepreneurial team and at the same time the organization works in collaboration to impede the internal and external issues in a creative and energized manner (Shearman Lajoie, 2016). When a true innovation system is critically analyzed, then it unveils some notable facts which define Strategic Innovation as an element which is incorporated by an organization to capture and interpret the articulated and unarticulated needs of the present and potential customers. The process adopted by this crucial element tends to fabricate an organizational culture that encourages generation and implementation of new ideas and simultaneously fosters collaborations among the working staff members. Strategic innovation, when applied on a practical level in an organization, readily covers all the fac ets of an organization, ranging from customers and delivery channels to partner networks and market segments. When innovation is applied at this level, then it has a sure tendency to create potential barriers to the competitors and hence keep an organization ahead in the dynamic business world. The following essay has been written to critically analyze the seven dimensions within a strategic innovation framework to produce a portfolio of outcomes that are responsible to drive growth in the Alibaba group (Broad, 2014). Alibaba, being the worlds largest online commerce company, have hundreds of millions of users and simultaneously hosts millions of merchants and businesses. In the worlds booming e-commerce market, this company has been declared as the most popular destination for shopping. At present the group is having its three leading sites, namely Taobao, Alibaba.com and Tmall. On an average, in a single year there are around $248 billion transactions made on all the three sites in totality. The major working strategy of the company highly relies on its huge customer bases and the tactics that cover maximum of the market segments. This could be regarded as the pivotal reason behind the enormous amount of efficient business that flows over its leading three sites. The company operates a leading business in the UK to find a manufacturer in China and have a production and shipping of a wide range of goods. The group also runs an online payment system named alipay.com which is quite similar to PayPa l in its operation (Hattendorf, 2014). Apart from being a leader in the e-commerce market, the company also offers online marketing, cloud computing and logistics operation to all of its consumers globally. There is a precise framework for strategic innovation and within this framework there are seven different branches which are collaboratively involved in producing innovative measures that drives growth in a company. Alibaba, following the same line has adopted this framework to produce lucrative outcomes that directly and indirectly have a great impact on the companys sales and revenues. The innovative ideas, involved in the framework, are designed to aid the company in reaching all its primary and secondary goals. The innovation also helps in the development and implementation of new products and services which are quite crucial for the survival of the company in the dynamically changing world of business. The survival of the company in the competitive world of business could also be strengthened by making sure that this leader of e-commerce effectively includes reformations in the adopted innovations so as to be in alignment with the changing needs and demands of the market and its current and potential consumers (Afuah, 2009). The seven dimensions are illustrated and described below: Managed innovation Process: A managed innovation process is regarded as the creative core of strategic innovation. Searching and devising an innovative idea could be comparatively easier than managing it. A well managed innovative process helps the company to look beyond the obvious conditions. Alibaba, being the leading e-commerce company has employed a number of ways to conventional and new approaches to its business strategies and hence made it possible to influence and inspire the company employees to search and execute myriads of pathways and possibilities. Another crucial method, the company has adopted to keep its position intact, is by keeping an efficient interplay between external perspectives and internal capabilities of the organization (Mackinnon, 2007). The diverse array of new imagination often leads to inspire corporate imagination and this makes the company to have a competitive advantage over all the others e-commerce companies in the global market. Strategic Alignment: This element of the framework is effectively incorporated to create a shared vision for the company. It is precisely defined as a process in which the senior leadership team is engaged along with the broad cross section of the organization and the crucial external stakeholders. The company is constantly this element effectively in inventing the innovation rather than copying and implementing the thinking of other leading competitors. The innovative ideas, developed inside the company, is often not influence by the individuals with loud voices, people in senior positions and other people with a great political background. The company has also promoted an active participation of the cross functional portion of the organization. If the alignment process is strategically devised then there are fair chances of creation of ownership, enthusiasm and commitment and also in building a strong foundation for successful implementation of the innovation process. Industry foresight: Consideration and evaluation of the future trends have become quite crucial to an organization if it has to survive in the current competitive business world. Alibaba, being a quite good forecaster of the future trends, has used this element efficiently to help the members of the company to understand the need for change and its possible consequences whether they are good or bad for the company (kataria, 2013). The identification of the trends, that are quite new to the business world, is often an important task to be performed by the company. Such identification is quite necessary for the evaluation of the current business strategies and the possible reformations that could be made in them to suit the changing aspects of business and requirements of the people. The company has also precisely followed a strategy that helps it to think outside the box to adopt and implement new trending technologies along with their conventional working strategies. This process als o aids the company to adopt a top to down approach that is precisely designed to understand the complex forces that are responsible to drive the change process. The emerging and converging trends, if well analyzed, prior to the introduction of any innovation in a company, tend to accelerate the innovation process and its implementation to the major working spheres of the company. Consumer / Customer Insight: This bottom up perspective of the seven dimensions is adopted by a company to evaluate the articulated, the explicitly stated and unarticulated, the latent or hidden needs and demands of the current and potential consumers. The company has always placed its consumers above all its elements and have devised a number of measures to attract and retain them. The customer satisfaction leads to consumer loyalty towards a company which ultimately leads the company to have better shares in the potential market segments. The company been selected here has a deep knowledge of the behavior, perceptions and the needs of the consumers and has been continuously working on employing a number of measures to improve their relations with them. The innovation process, being carried out in the company, has developed a number of areas where the customer participation is a must (Fairholm, 2009). This has not only worked in the direction of the strengthening the relationships, but also increasing the customers say in the crucial influential decisions of the firm. This dimension of strategic innovation process uses the conventional consumer forums in a more creative way without losing the true essence of traditional working methodologies. Core Technologies and Competencies: This dimension of strategic innovation process consists of a set of internal capabilities and organizational competencies that are constantly being improved to suit the needs of the consumers. The pivotal aim of this element is to deliver value to the customer that can either be in the form of technologies and intellectual property or could also include brand equity and strategic relationships. Just having a deep knowledge of the customers needs is not enough to survive in this competitive business world. The future trending technologies also play an integral role in determining the success rate of the company. Alibaba, being a large organization, comprises of a number of different types of business units which have a tendency to develop their own operational processes and valuable competencies to share with other operating units of the enterprise (Mahmood, et al., 2013). For better results, the internal capabilities of the organization could be ex tracted and can be put to better use to deliver ultimate satisfaction to the consumers. With a great knowledge of both of these elements, an organization can transform the imaginative ideas into practical investment worthy opportunities for the company. Organizational Readiness: The company being evaluated here, has a competitive advantage over the other e-commerce leaders in a form that during the implementation of any big or small change process, the company has shown a character of Organizational Readiness which directly and indirectly aids it in adapting to the changes in an effective manner. With this trait, there has been a development of potentialities that has eventually led this company to implement new ideas and strategies in compliance to its prevailing working methodologies and has also helped it to strategically manage the operational, political, fiscal and cultural demands of the current and future target market segments. Even if the organization has adopted the most innovative ideas in its working strategies, they will be proved to be non-workable if the organization has not prepared its employees to adapt to the changes (Johnson Kanglong, 2014). This element also encourages an organization to take the crucial initia l decisions about the changes being implemented and also sets the required expectations about how effectively the innovative process is implemented without any delay. Disciplined Implementation: Disciplined implementation of innovative ideas and strategies has always been integral in deciding the success rate of the Change Process. The effectiveness of the change implementation plan is highly dependent on the way how disciplined a company has been throughout the designing and implementation of the process. The production of creative, strategic thinking and its effective implementation, both are equally challenging in to create a meaningful business results (STRAT 9 Team, 2015). The implementation process is not that easy when practically executed and comprises of a number of broad set of activities that cannot be implemented without the collaborative and disciplined efforts of all the sections of the organization. The chosen organization, however, has succeeded in implementing discipline across all its working units and hence has developed it as the main competitive advantage against all its existing as well as the emerging competitors in the e-co mmerce markets. While adopting discipline-oriented services, the innovation process adopted undergoes a crucial transition from an ambiguous and exploratory form to a more concrete and operational form which could be readily implemented at the operational level (Kornik, 2013). Alibaba, being the giant leader in the e-commerce market, has effectively covered the entire seven dimensions in the strategic innovation framework to drive growth in all its working units. This differential growth collectively has collaborated a lot in changing the profit and sales of the company and creating and retaining its position until now. The Strategic Innovation techniques are well implemented by this group not only to drive growth but also to understand the organizational priorities and comply it with the changing behavior, perceptions and needs of the existing and potential consumers. A strong internal structure of the company has also helped the company to become more innovative and move further along the path toward a sustainable and strategic innovation (Rudd, 2007). Bibliography Afuah, A., 2009. Strategic innovation, s.l.: Routledge. Broad, M., 2014. Alibaba: What exactly does it do?. Alibaba, 14 September. Fairholm, M. R., 2009. Leadership and Organizational Strategy. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(01), pp. 1-16. Hattendorf, H., 2014. Seven Steps to Creating a Successful Innovation Framework. Successful Innovation Framework, 27 January. Johnson, W. Kanglong, L., 2014. Strategic Innovation and Sustainability. 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