Dyson Assignment - Final Course Assessment PDF

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INTRODUCTION Whenever people talk about companies who came with brilliant ideas and creations in this century, Dyson has to be among them. Dyson is one among the most innovative company in the world who did what seems impossible to other companies, being innovative made Dyson very popular and successfully in the vacuum cleaner industry. However it is important to discuss about the type of innovation that made Dyson successful, was it Incremental or radical? This report will critically appraise the literature review of innovation, it will also discuss case brief of Dyson and Situation analysis covering Dyson’s organizational, industry and global context. Furthermore, this report will assess whether Dyson success and achievement has been based on incremental or radically innovation approach. Last but not least it will recommend the most suitable and effective innovation type that a small engineering company in Tanzania can use to be successfully, this recommendation will base on the lessons that has been learned from Dyson case.

CASE BRIEF OF DYSON The case study presented is all about the achievements of James Dyson, how his innovation and creativity led him to be a multi billionaire personal. Dyson knew that to get the Lion’s Share of the market he has to come up with something innovative & creative and in doing so he brought many radical and incremental innovations. His first innovation was the solution of the problem that figured out with his vacuum that loses suction after the pores in dirt bags get filled with dust particles and to overcome this he came up with cyclone technology which later he patented so that others can’t copy it. Dyson brought many incremental innovations to its existing products with the passage of time but mostly he is well renowned for Vacuum Cleaners because that was his first and foremost innovation that completely brought revolution to the market. The research and development at Dyson has always been creative, from the beginning their core focus is upon uniqueness and creativity and in doing so over the years they have come up with many innovative products like Robot Vacuums, Handheld Vacuums, Dyson Supersonic hairdryer, Dyson Airblade, Dyson Air Multiplier and many other models of vacuum cleaners. Dyson’s products have always come with high prices because of its quality and uniqueness and the products are worth the price.

SITUATION ANALYSIS COVERING DYSON’S ORGANISATIONAL, INDUSTRY AND GLOBAL CONTEXT Global context PEST model is applied to describe global context of Dyson organization. Since Dyson’s product portfolio is diversified, including, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, fans and robot devices, this model should deal with general technological home appliances. PEST is comprised of Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors (Abdullah and Shamsher, 2011).  Political factor: As measured by World Bank, average political stability index in 2015 in the world is -0.04 in the range from -2.5 to 2.5 (The Global Economy, 2016). Hence, political situation in the world remains controversial. Despite this, enforcement of intellectual property rights is strong in the world to assist Dyson to protect its unique technology (Gurry, 2012).

 Economic factor: Economic growth in the world reached 2.659% in 2015 and kept stable after the financial crisis with the reduction from 4.372% in 2010 to 2.445% in 2012 (Appendix 1). Additionally, world population is distributed via 56% of low income, 13% of middle income, 9% of upper-middle income and 7% of high income (Appendix 2). Hence, premium products of Dyson only serve these 29% of world population (from middle-income level above).  Social factor: Gender difference could not determine the classification of roles on housework and women are more equal to men in business activities, hence, the use of convenient technology for home appliances is highly demanded (Auspurg et al., 2017). Additionally, people are more concerned with differentiation than low cost.  Technological factor: this time is technological age. Regarding home appliances, smart technology such as automation and energy efficiency are emphasized (Morrison, 2015; Atha et al., 2016).

Industry context Porter’s five forces model is utilized to describe industry context around Dyson. It includes threat of new entrant and substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers along with rivalry with existing companies (Sumpio, 2013).

Barriers of entry (Very High)

Substitute s (Low)

Rivals of RCl (Extremely High)

Customer Bargaining Power (High)

Supplier Bargaining Power

(Low)

 Threat of new entrant: From case study, there are numerous results for cheap vacuum cleaners in Google via Internet. Hence, this threat is very high in this industry because of the support of Internet age and easy copy of design and technology.  Threat of substitute: technological home appliances have the substitutes from traditional or handy methods such as besom and the maids. Hence, this threat is low because these substitutes are not convenient.  Bargaining power of buyers: From case study, since buyers could determine their preferable brands and concern with differentiated values, their power is high in this industry.  Bargaining power of suppliers: It refers to the number of suppliers and type of supplies (Sumpio, 2013). Since companies in this industry normally establish their own factories, production will not strongly depend on suppliers. Hence, this power is low.

 Rivalry: Case study emphasizes that when Dyson innovates its products and offers in the market, competitors’ attitudes are very serious, such as Hoover. They compete in both price and technology. Thus, degree of competition is extremely high.

Organizational situation From case study, there are three key important situations facing Dyson organization. The first one is its diversity in product portfolios, to cover different home appliances, including, washing machine, fans, vacuum cleaner, hair and hand dryers and robotic devices. Hence, to balance its innovation, all these product ranges should be developed. Secondly, Dyson has a large business scope not only in its home market, Britain but also in over the world. The company sells products in more than 65 countries (Dyson, 2016). Thus, innovation should be balanced among various markets. Moreover, the company is highly concerned with intellectual property and even involved some patent infringements such as with Hoover in 1999. Therefore, to protect its innovative outputs, this issue should be achieved legally and officially.

LITERATURE REVIEW Innovation is the ideas, practices, or objects that are perceived by Rogers as "new" by the individual or by other units that adopt it. Four Main Types of Innovation Product Innovation; Businesses do not have to produce a new product to do product innovation. They change and differentiate their existing products to make better, better quality, more superior features, and they are innovating their products. Process Innovation; it means developing in the applications of production or distribution methods or bringing up a completely new process. Position Innovation; The third focus of innovation is the repositioning of a product or process perception in a particular context. Position-based innovation is the change in how a particular product or process is symbolically perceived and used.

Paradigm Innovation; it refers to innovation that defines or redefines the dominant paradigms of an organization or of the entire industry. Paradigm-based innovations are concerned with mental models that determine the shape of an organization or an enterprise. Incremental Innovation vs. Radical Innovation The increasing popularity of incremental innovation is because it reduces the risk compared to radical innovation. In addition, since a company has a tendency to build human capital and qualifications at a considerable level after running a product, the firm also devotes time to making it better or reducing costs.

Pure radical innovation is better described by Kim and Mauborgne as "blue ocean strategy". The strategy in the blue ocean is not to disrupt competition but to overcome it. Instead of fighting for market share, a company pulls out of the way and creates its own market (Kim and Mauborgne, 2005).

It sounds great, but it conceptualizes the hardest part of the blue ocean strategy. In the last 30 years, the vast majority of the competition strategy is turning around competition, not opening up new market share. As a result, it becomes extremely challenging to determine which initiative should pass.

THE TYPE OF INNOVATION THAT DYSON USED Sir James Dyson a British inventor who transformed the working method of a vacuum cleaner for the world with his creative & imaginative thinking and that made him a successful entrepreneur and a billionaire. Dyson has proved himself a genuine creative personal since the beginning of his career, the trail of his innovations begun in early 1970s while he was just 23 a student at Royal college of Arts and also working for manufacturing company Rotork, there he designed a boat made of fibre glass known as Rotork Sea Truck (Sam Kieldson, 2014) that was used as military landing craft, another example of Dyson’s innovative approach was the Ball Barrow in 1974(Stephen Dowling, 2013) when he saw a wheel barrow got stuck in the mud and because of the wheel it was unable to come out of the mud, to solve this problem he introduced wide plastic ball instead of the wheel that came out to be more stable and easy to handle as compared to wheel barrow. Rotork Sea Truck Early 1970s

Ball Barrow 1974

Over the years innovation that came out to be the most revolutionary and successful for Dyson was the Bag less vacuum cleaner in which cyclone technology was introduced that completely changed the way of vacuum cleaning process. He named it the G-Force cleaner which was launched in the Japanese market, manufactured under license by Japanese Company Apex, it was sold in Japanese Market for around £2000 and also it won the 1991 international design fair. (Madison Malone-Kircher, 2016). G-Force Cleaner

After the great success of G-Force in Japanese Market, James Dyson was able to found his own company and DC01 was the first product to launch under the name dyson in which dyson used his patented dual cyclone technology that really became a great start for the company after that Dyson carried on introducing newer and better models of the vacuume cleaners like dc02, dc07, V8 & V6 Cord Free Vacuum, Dyson Cinetic Bigball and DC40 are good examples of dyson incremental innovation approach while at the beginning dyson dual cyclone technology and later on

Dyson

V6

&

Dyson

360eye

are

good

examples

of

Radical

Innovation

Approach(www.dyson.co.uk). Dyson has also adopted both incremental and radical innovation approach in its other products such as Blade less Fans called Dyson Cool, Dyson Airblade Dryer and Dyson Supersonic. Dyson’s success depends upon it’s uniqueness and style the prices they charge are quite a lot for their products but customers do not just get products but also they get a style symbol. Innovation can be seen through out the existing product line of Dyson Corporation and that is also a major factor in dyson’s success and it is the combination of

both radical and incremental innovation. Dyson Corporation always keeps on working on the existing products and bring more betterment to their products through incremental innovation and when they completely come up with a new idea and new product they apply the radical approach towards innovation. The need of incremental innovation arises with the passage of time as technology is getting advanced with every second passing and customer demands are changing. Apple Corporation is one of the best the example when it comes to incremental innovation every year they come up with more better and improved version of their products. At first they came up with their first smart phone with very basic functions and later on their products evolved with passage of time and increased customer demands. The way Dyson wanted to give uniqueness and style to Vacuum Cleaner which are According to him are “unloved objects” (The Guardian Newspaper, 2014) in the same way Steve Jobs late CEO of Apple wanted to keep the Apple products simple and that is why most of the Apple Products are known for their simple interface that anyone can operate them even without instructions (John Wasik, 2016). Gillette is also another good example when it comes to incremental innovation it was founded in 1901 by King Camp Gillette and William Nickerson an MIT graduate. Since 1901 Gillette has introduced number of products primarily Gillette Razors with more improved and better quality of Razors and blades so that customers can get the best shaving experience(Leanne Davis, 2010). When it comes to Radical Innovation or disruptive innovation it means bringing something new to the world and eradicate the existing old products or processes. In Dyson’s case the invention of Dual Cyclone Technology was a Radical Innovation which brought radical solution to a Vacuum Suction problem faced by Dyson. Same like Dyson there are other companies who brought radical innovation such as Bell labs who introduced the transistor technology and removed the limitations and barriers existed because of Vacuum Tube technology. Transistor was invented in 1947 but the technolgy later on came out to be so useful that the inventors of transistor technology John Bardeen and Walter Brattain were awarded with Nobel Prize in 1956 (Professor David B Haviland, 2002).

RECCOMENDATION TO MELISHA Before the recommendations, it is important to know the profile and situation analysis of Kilimanjaro Cable Ltd. KCL is a small engineering company in Tanzania that wishes to imitate Dyson Success. Kilimanjaro Cables LTD is the leading manufacturer of Africa brand cables in Tanzania. It was found in 2002 with the mission of offering high standard and precious cable to their customer at cheaper price. To ensure the quality and customer satisfaction they use international and national standard like ISO and TBS. They offer products like Frls & heat resistant, Instrumentation, Flat PVC insulated, Single & multicore PVC, Coaxial cables, Telephone wires & cables, Power cables and Control cables. Regardless of being the leading cable manufacture and ensure the quality and standard of the cables[ CITATION Kil17 \l 1033 ]. But this small engineering company is scared of losing its market share due to the continuously growing of digital technology as a result they want to be innovative and success like Dyson. Furthermore it is also important to know its existing position before recommendation. The existing position of KCL will be analysed below by using SWOT analysis and M. Porter five forces

Strengths

Table 1: Kilimanjaro Cable LTD SWOT analysis

 Strong brand name (leading Cable

 Unskilled labour

manufacturer)

 Lack of innovation

 Low operation cost which help them to

 Lack of charismatic leader who can

offer their products at low price

motivate employees

 Availability of raw materials locally

 Lack of resources especially skilled labour

 Wide range of products

and better machines

Opportunities  Cheap labour

Threats  Economic crisis in Tanzania

 Available of skilled labour

 Abroad rivals ( many people import cables

 Support from the government , this can help them to expand rapidly

Source: Author

from China)

Table 2: Kilimanjaro Porter 5 forces analysis

Barriers of entry ( Low) Tanzania Government influence and give support to entrepreneurs in order to grow the economic and reduce unemployment

Substitutes(Low) There are very few substitutes in Tanzania since its a developing country with very slow growing of Technology

Rivals(High) Availability of raw materials locally has led intensive competition

Customer Bargaining Power(High) KCL has to offer excellent products at low price due to the fact that KCL operate in Red ocean with many competitors

Supplier Bargaining Power (Low) Availability of many local suppliers give a great opportunity to KCL to decide the price of raw materials

Source: Author

As a professionally consultant it will be very strange to recommend the most effective innovation strategy based on the lessons that has been learned from Dyson to Kilimanjaro Cables LTD without talking about those lessons and things we have learned and found from Dyson. This brief will help Kilimanjaro Cable LTD to compare itself with Dyson and identify areas which required to be improved.

Lets first review who is James Dyson and what made him so successfully despite of being let down and ignored by many companies include Hoover which later was sued by him by imitating his bag less idea. James Dyson is one among the most powerfully and popular British investor who always thinks outside the box to make existing products looks totally different to the world just as described earlier by my colleague. He is self confidence; risk taker and someone who is ready and willing to try 1000 times just to get 1 thing perfect[ CITATION Bes13 \l 1033 ]. The reason of starting sharing James Dyson profile is to show how important and inspirational any leader is to any kind of innovation and growth of the company.

Apart from that, usually characteristics and personalities of a leader reflect to the company’s culture and indeed this will affect innovation and growth of the company as well. When we take a look at the things we learned about Dyson as a company, every employee is very committed and takes time for creating something new, they are not afraid of failure ( they tried 5127 prototypes to get the best one). This can be clarified by one of the employee’s statement who said that, every engineer at Dyson design their own vacuum cleaner to use at home which make them feel ownership and become more creative. We can clearly see that there is no huge different between James Dyson characteristics and company culture. Similarly happened to Google, its founder’s personality and culture of influencing innovation and creation to other is what has made it to be the largest and the most popular search engine in the world. This is what KCL has missed, they do not either have a great leader nor brilliant and skilled labour rather they have employees who only follow orders and do what they were asked to do , consequently they first need skilled labour and a great leader who can influence innovation within the company.

Having a charismatic and innovative leader who can influence and become a role model to other is the first priority and perhaps the most important element even before choosing innovation strategy and that’s why it was important to start talking about James Dyson, so we can see his influence to Dyson success. It’s easy to start one successfully investment but maintaining it, it’s a big challenge; Kilimanjaro Cables LTD need a great leader and great team to be innovate and long term successfully. We have seen what happened to Nokia and Blackberry; they use good strategy but couldn’t maintain it. Resource based view model argue that having valuable, rare and inimitable products is not enough to have sustainable competitive advantage, you also need to be organized and of course the one organizing and

maintaining innovation is a leader. Consequently Kilimanjaro Cables LTD should have a role model and brilliant leader who can be example, initiative, motivator and inspirational to others in order to be innovativ...