Q A: Two Business Functions to help Identify and Address Organization’s Innovation Needs

Change is as good as rest. In modern business world, competition has grown in escalating levels making it inevitable (Tohidi & Jabbari, 2012) for firms and businesses such as Tiger to consider making changes in their operations. This need for change may be brought about by either internal or external forces and depends on the nature of the industry in which the business fall as well as the dynamism that exists at a particular moment.  Identification of areas that require innovation is a combined effort from business functions such as marketing, operations, and finance among others (Gupta et al., 2016). Tiger’s marketing function can help in identifying innovation needs by carrying out market intelligence in order to collect customer feedback on satisfaction and gather information on new product development and improvement. This would provide Tiger with exact customer needs and offer confidence in the positioning of new products in the market. The marketing department can help in identifying new ways of conducting business. For example, by conducting market research, it could come up with improved packaging tactics that can make the delivery process effective especially for fragile items.

Innovation process requires vast resources ranging from human, capital, technological and financial resources. Finance function in Tiger can help to identify innovation needs by finding new ways of managing and tracking finances for effective utilization. From the case study, Tiger finds online shopping expensive due to the transactional cost involved thus the need to develop methods of reducing this cost to a manageable level. The finance function can also suggest financial software to be used in facilitating e-payments and refunding overpayments if need be. Tiger is signing a 10year lease plan for its shops, which creates an opportunity for the finance function to develop a tool for a cost-benefit analysis for both physical and online shopping (Wilson, 2013). The fact that Tiger owns many shops in different regions is an innovation chance itself as the finance department can develop electronic means of interlinking financial transactions such that they are traceable.

QB: Applying the Two Business Functional Innovation Perspective for Tiger

Marketing forms the heart of any business organizations extension plans (Gotz, Hansen, Jo & Krafft, 2009). With good marketing practices any organization can manage to reach out to new customers; thus, improving the market share and profitability. Tiger Company has been opposing the idea of online marketing based on the associated increased cost of packaging and fragility of the products. The brick and mortar distribution approach is falling out of favor with the increasing technology adoption and increased internet connectivity (Mohammadzadeh, Aarabi & Salamzadeh, 2013). Resisting the change may work against the company progressive development. The company should engage in adopting and appreciating the new platforms for marketing such as the online platform.

Through marketing research, the company can identify the main online platforms where it customers often visits. Adding the customer coverage and share is a plus that should be considered. Having a website for displaying their products is inadequate. Tiger Company should engage in online marketing as a complementary platform for the brick and mortar marking platform. The data acquired through marketing research can be used to help the company come up with new innovations approaches, which addresses the identified challenges ongoing online such as cost (Gotz, Hansen, Jo & Krafft, 2009). With the company being global, online platform can join the clients from all the outlets. The platform can also offer review forums that can help towards improving the products and operation of the company.

The second functional perspective that Tiger Company can exploit innovatively and creatively is the finance function. With the company wrestling for the customers with other global companies in the kitchenware retail trading, finance is a key factor to consider when laying down a platform for improving the company performance. Inadequate finances may limit the degree of finance committed to research and innovation (Mohammadzadeh, Aarabi & Salamzadeh, 2013). However, this limitation as evidenced to be the major impediment to maximizing on the online platform should be a motivator for finding what works for the company with the limited finance. Necessity is the mother of innovation. With the need to improve productivity and sales in limited financial capability, the company should innovate ways of meeting the desires. In the modern society, the principles of lean production can be borrowed to infer of best practices in retailing activities (Jasti & Kodali, 2012) to help the company reduce of wastage and maximize on allocating the resources to functions that have a direct improvement on performance.

QC: Challenges Managers at Tiger might face in Choosing the Functional Perspective

Marketing and finance functional perspective have both direct and indirect interaction and interdependence. For marketers to come up with feasible, appropriate, relevant, and effective innovation for Tiger business, the finance department must be involved in ensuring that such innovations are included in the budget. Too expensive innovations may not be adopted since the business may be inadequate to meet the cost. The innovation identified by the marketing functional arm of the business must be cost-effective. According to the current Tiger director, Mr. Bire, migrating to e-marketing aggressively may be limited by transactional cost, fragility, and bulkiness of the company products. While the managed in the finance department may be cautious on entertaining a platform that may be costly, the manager in the marketing department may feel the migration from brick and mortar strategy to the extensive online platform is the right step towards the future (Micu, Ifrim, Daraban & Purdescu, 2012).

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Reference

Gotz. O, Hansen. A. K, Jo.A.R, Krafft.M (2009). The role of marketing and sales in             organizations and its impact on performance. Marketing Science Institute. Retrieved        from: http://www.msi.org/reports/the-role-of-marketing-and-sales-in-organizations-            and-its-impact-on-performa/

Gupta, S., Malhotra, N.K., Czinkota, M. et al. (2016). Marketing innovation: a consequence of           competitiveness. Journal of Business Research.69(12); 5671 – 5681 

Jasti, N.V.K & Kodali, R. (2012). Lean production: literature review and trends. International   Journal of Production Research, 53(3); 867 -885

Micu, D., Ifrim, L., Daraban, C. & Purdescu, C. (2012). Cross-functional linkages between        marketing and other business functions in an industrial organization. UPB Scientific Bulletin, Series D: Mechanical Engineering. 74. 241-252.

Mohammadzadeh, M., Aarabi, S.M. & Salamzadeh, J. (2013). Organizational performance,   marketing strategy, and financial strategic alignment: an empirical study on Iranian          pharmaceutical firms. Daru Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 21(1); 65 – 68

Tohidi. T, Jabbari, M. M (2012). The importance of innovation and its crucial role in growth,            survival and success of organizations. Procedia Technology 535-538. Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221201731200117X

Wilson, A. (2013). Online? It’s not really our top priority; A Danish Homeware chain, Tiger, is            flourishing without the internet. The Daily Telegraph.

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