A Case Study on Blue Vision Labs

Introduction

Innovation has become essential for all business organisations to help them upgrade their organisational policies and functions for sustaining in the competitive market, including in the area of business dissertation help. The organisation also requires innovation to develop better products in comparison to their rivals. In order to execute this, the organisations require carrying out effective research in the market to identify the aspects on which they require to innovate to challenge their competitors and develop a competitive advantage. In this assignment, the way Blue Visions Labs benefit from their innovation and commercial skills to increase the Return on Investment is identified and discussed. The Blue Vision Labs is a UK based Augmented Reality company who is providing services for next-generation of Augmented Reality and robotics. The mission of the company is to empower the developers in revolutionising the way individual interact with the environment and technology and with one another. Innovation includes deliberate implementation of imagination, information and taking initiative in deriving different and greater values from resources and involving all processes through which new ideas can be generated and converting to develop new and useful products (Prajogo, 2016). The innovation is essential for Blue Vision Labs so that their employees can deliver new and more attractive experience with newer variety of features in the field of Augmented Reality to its customers. This is going to create products which go over the demands made by the consumers ensuring greater satisfaction and better returns on investment by the organisation. As per Souto (2015), innovation is essential for employees in the organisation so that they can learn new way of executing their tasks within limited time and with better efficiency. In this regard, innovation at Blue Vision Labs is going to help the employees motivated to think new ideas in executing their tasks with better efficiency and learn new skills to ensure better productivity and return on investment for the organisation. As mentioned by Cheng et al. (2014), innovation is often regarded to be costly and time-consuming. Thus, it may act as a limitation for small business enterprises like Blue Vision Labs because they may experience financial crisis and lack of quicker delivery of products in the market to gain profit and returns on their investment. As argued by Palangkaraya et al. (2015), small business often fails to develop large scale of product at lower cost while implementing innovation. This fact is going to pose innovation as a limitation for Blue Vision Labs as they are not going to receive guarantee on increased return on investment.

The invention refers to the creation of new product or services which are made for the first time. However, innovation is addition of new and improved features in the existing products so that they can be presented in a new way to the consumers and in the market (Galindo and Méndez, 2014). Blue Vision Labs made invention of new augmented reality services and software when they first entered the market. They did invention of new augmented reality by offering consumers the augmented reality through their traditional android phones. However, presently Blue Vision Labs in making innovation in their products and not implementing invention as invention requires more time than innovation and to cope with the competition they do not have extended amount of time to create invention.

The sources from which idea of innovation is to be determined is changes in market and industry performance (Foss and Saebi, 2017). This is because by analysing the changes in the market and industry along with the demands and needs in the market, the information is going to help Blue Vision Labs to identify which innovative features to be added in their products and services so that can adapt with the change. The Blue Vision Labs maintains innovative culture in their organisation by creating openness to value all form of ideas from the employees, taking a risk in creating innovation in their products, offer incentives to employees for successful innovation and others to ensure better return on investment (bluevisionlabs.workable.com, 2018).

P2 Explaining the way organisational vision, culture, leadership and teamwork shape commercialisation and innovation (M1, D1)

The vision of the organisation informs what they wish to be in the market and thus they guide the strategic plans and objectives of the business. As mentioned by Nieuwenhuis et al. (2017), an organisational vision which concentrates on their overall future development to be made by changing according to the demands in the market by the implementation of new ideas and features in delivering their services and products promotes innovation. This is because such a vision directs the employees to develop idea that they require to execute their tasks and manufacture products for the organisation in better and innovative ways to incur better return on investment. In the case of Blue Vision labs, their vision is already to revolutionise the way people use augmented reality through innovative techniques which effectively promotes and shape innovation of their products to ensure better return on investment (ROI) (www.bluevisionlabs.com, 2018). This is because the vision of the organisation mentions the employees to have the objective to provide innovative features in manufacturing and developing their products which effectively fulfils the needs of the consumers orienting towards earning better ROI.

The organisations which maintain an open work culture where the employees are trusted and new ideas from each of them are equally valued and desired with less or no punishment for justified errors effectively shapes innovation and commercialisation (Kratzer et al. 2017). This is because open work culture allows the employees to develop knowledge from one another regarding the way they can work more efficiently develop innovation in products so that they can be commercialised in the market to get better ROI. Blue Vision Labs maintains an open work culture where they allow new valid ideas from employees to be implemented in their products to develop product features for the consumers to ensure better ROI (www.bluevisionlabs.com, 2018). This result in effectively shaping innovation for successful commercialisation of products along with getting better ROI as the new ideas of employees is implemented to create innovative products and services that fulfils the extended demands and needs of the consumers.

The effective leadership is required in shaping proper innovation and commercialisation because the leaders direct their subordinates about the facts on which they are to focus to create effective innovation (McCleskey, 2014). Thus, effective leadership acts as a guide for the employees regarding the way to orient their vision towards making successful innovation to get better return in what they invested. Moreover, leadership within organisation which promotes the employees to think freely and develop new ideas for innovation in products results in shaping successful innovation and commercialisation of products (Leithwood and Azah, 2016). This is done in Blue Vision Labs where the leaders direct and supervises as well as motivates the employees regarding the way to think in adding new features in their products and the way their work performances can be improved with the addition of new skills so that in the end they can get better return on whatever they invested. It shapes effective innovation and ROI as the employees have knowledge and inspiration to make a positive change in products ensuring proper innovation with effective investment of their efforts ideas and others.

Teamwork within the organisation allows the employees to select the right and efficient way of executing new changes in products by developing collaborative decision through analysis of each new idea for creating innovation and better ROI (Betta, 2016). This results to shape successful innovation and commercialisation as the new features added in the existing products are ensured to be valid as it is made through the collaborative decision and by viewing perspectives of all. Blue Vision Labs in a similar way promotes teamwork to shape innovation and commercialisation of their products in the industry.

P3 Explaining the 4P’s of innovation and use of innovation funnel for examining and shaping innovative ideas (M2, D1)

The 4P’s of innovation are product, process, position and paradigm innovation. As asserted by Moreno-Luzon (2017), product innovation refers to the addition of advanced and new ideas in the existing products to be presented them in a new and improved way. This is required for increasing the sales and return on investment for the organisation which can be executed with proper implementation and selection of new ideas by the employees. Blue Vision Labs establishes product innovation through addition of new features according to the updated technological needs and trends in the market in their existing products to present them in a better way to the consumers to offer them improved service satisfaction. As stated by Flores (2017), process innovation refers to the application of significantly improved and new production method in manufacturing or developing products or services. It is required to develop better efficiency in producing and delivering products to the market within minimised time, in turn, helping to increase the productivity and ROI of the organisation. Blue Vision Labs ensures process innovation by providing new ideas to the employees regarding the way they can work with better efficiency and speed to develop products. This is to improve productivity of the firm so that improved return on investment can be achieved.

The position innovation refers to the repositioning of the perception regarding a certain existing product within a specific context (Parameswar et al. 2017). This is important to lead the company to ensure the way they are to invest to get good return on investment (ROI) for attaining sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Blue Vision Labs promotes position innovation in their products by better investment of ideas and finances in the company by repositioning the perception that augmented reality is not just for fun to make to augmented reality as an important thing required in everyday life. As mentioned by Pavón and Pavón (2017), paradigm innovation refers to creating change in the existing working ways of the organisation for the promotion of their services or products. Blue Vision Labs uses paradigm innovation to develop new ideas in which their products can be more effectively developed and promoted in the market within lower cost to get better return on investment (ROI).

The innovation funnel informs that innovation can be created by ideation, definition, designing and later development of the product. As mentioned by Zandoval Bonazzi and Ari Zilber (2014), in ideation phase research is to be conducted to identify factors based on which new ideas of innovation are to be developed. In the ideation phase, the employees are asked by the Blue Vision Labs to inform about their ideas regarding innovation to be made in the existing products of the company. As commented by Mount and Martinez (2014), define is the proper understanding of the innovative idea to ensure it is valid for implementation. In this phase, the Blue Vision Labs define and analyse each of the new ideas regarding the innovation of product to select the valid idea to be implemented for creating change in existing products. In the design phase, the selected innovative idea is understood and designs are made regarding the way to accomplish it (Yun, 2017). In Blue Vision Labs, the specialists’ technicians are involved in designing the changes in technology to be made in the products to present it in a new way to the consumers. The last stage of innovation funnel is development in which the product is developed following the design of innovation to get good ROI from the market (Zandoval Bonazzi and Ari Zilber, 2014). In this step, Blue Vision Labs develops the technologically innovated product according to the approved design by the techniques and specialists. This is to ensure effective ROI can be achieved by the company through the successful delivery of their innovated products to the consumers.

P4 Explaining the developments in frugal innovation and provide examples (M3, D1)

The Frugal Innovation is the process in which the complexity as well as the cost of the products and its production in reduced (Winterhalter et al. 2017). This is done to get a better return on investment being made by the organisation by availing increased profit within less time. As mentioned by Zeschky et al. (2014), the cost of production can be reduced by designing the product. In order to do this, the organisation required to identify the unimportant features in their products so that it can be eliminated while products are produced. Blue Vision Labs by identifying the unimportant technical features added in their products related to augmented reality and robotics while production eliminates them to reduce the overall cost of the products and production. This is because it helps them avoid wastage of finances in the production of features that are useless for consumers, in turn, helping them to reduce the cost of the product to plan for getting a better return on investment. As argued by Shibin et al. (2018), an organisation on evaluating their production cost often finds that the employees are not providing effective quality and efficiency to produce goods which result in increasing the cost of the product. This happens because the employees may not have the idea that they are showing lower efficiency or they do not have effective skills. In order to ensure reduction of cost of the products to establish frugal innovation, the organisation requires training their employees to help them implement full efficiency at work. Blue Vision Labs is seen to implement training for implementing efficiency from the part of the employees at work to establish frugal innovation.

The complexity in production of products can be reduced by implementation of new and developed technology in the production process (Weyrauch and Herstatt, 2017). Blue Vision Labs is seen to implement new technologies for easing the way of producing augmented reality applications and products so that the complexity in production is reduced. This has helped them to effectively establish frugal innovation as reducing complexity in production of products is a process of establishing this type of innovation. (Refer to Appendix 1)

P5 Explaining the importance of commercial funnel and application of NPD process for commercialisation of innovation (M4, D2)

The commercialisation funnel has the key focus to mention the journey of the new product from its production stage to its purchase by consumers (Szymańska et al. 2016). As per Radnejad and Vredenburg (2015), the commercialisation funnel is important because it helps the organisation to develop idea regarding the way they can execute sales of their new product at commercial level through effective awareness of the product for its purchase to get good ROI. In this respect, the Blue Vision Labs uses the commercialisation funnel to identify the way they can effectively sale their augmented reality application at the commercial level to its target customers to gain effective revenue and ROI for the business. As mentioned by Szymańska et al. (2016), commercialisation funnel is important for the organisation to understand the factors in their products responsible to create consumer leads. This is required as it is going to help the organisation promote those features in their product for turning potential and new consumers into long-term customers to get increased return on investment.

The New Product Development (NPD) process is referred to the process related to taking the product from their conception phase to the real market. There are various steps to NPD which are idea generation, idea evaluation, concept definition, strategic analysis, product development and testing, market testing, commercialisation and product launch. As mentioned by Silinevica et al. (2016), in idea generation phase of NPD innovative new ideas regarding forming new product are brainstormed. In the case of Blue Vision Labs, in the idea generation phase, they are to identify and brainstorm the innovations to be made in their existing products and application to be presented it in a new way. In the idea evaluation phase, Blue Vision Labs is to assess which idea of innovation is to be applied in the application or their products to make it effectively present in a new way to the consumers to ensure good ROI. In concept definition, the specifications like product design, technical feasibility and market potential of the new innovative products are considered (www.bluevisionlabs.com, 2018). This phase is required to be dealt with concern by the Blue Vision Labs to help them understand the feasibility and credibility of implementing the innovative idea for present the existing product in a new way in the market. In the strategic analysis phase, the organisation is to ensure that innovative idea fit with their business strategic plans (Gutierrez-Gutierrez et al. 2018). Blue Vision Labs need to make sure the innovative ideas for the new product meet their existing business strategic plans so that its implementation derives them to get proper profit margin and good return on investment.

In the product development and testing phase and in market testing phase, Blue Vision Labs is to create a prototype of the new innovative product for pilot study and to understand how well their investment is going to get accepted in the market. In the commercialisation phase, the company is to make finalised market plans to properly introduce the product in the market to ensure good return on investment made for creating the new product. In the product launch phase, Blue Vision Labs is to create a detailed launch of the innovative new product or application to ensure its proper market introduction along with consumer satisfaction to ensure good ROI.

P6 Building an Innovation business Case for an organisation (M4, D2)

An innovative business idea is essential to make the organisation to sustain their position in the market by getting good return on investment in comparison to its competitors (Gelbmann and Hammerl, 2015). The Innovation Business Case of Blue Vision Labs is as follows:

Situation: The innovative idea for Blue Vision Labs is to create an additional feature in their augmented reality application that helps the users to look at how they appear in different traditional dresses in different travel location. This is going to deliver enhanced experience to the users to feel how they are going to look when visiting the places in reality. It is potential idea because many individuals due to lack of money and time cannot travel to places they wish to go (Osiyevskyy and Dewald, 2015). This feature is going to help the users of applications of Blue Vision Labs to feel better and forget their grief of not being able to visit the places in reality.

Strategy: The uniqueness of launching this feature is that the users are going to have a pioneering experience to virtually visit places in different attire to feel the fun of travelling in reality. Blue Vision Labs is to implement the innovative feature in the augmented reality could system by making potential technical and software changes in their application. They are to aware regarding the innovation in their products to the consumers by using an online advertising strategy in which they are to involve social media and other online platforms for promoting the new features in their products.

Tactics: During the implementation of the innovative idea, Blue Vision Labs may experience barriers which are going to hinder their expectation of getting good return on investment by implementing the business case. Thus, to avoid the barriers, they are to execute analysis to determine in which aspects they are going to face barriers in executing the innovation so that proper solutions may be tactically developed previously to avoid the barriers from creating problem in successful implementation of the innovation to get good ROI. Return on Investment (ROI) is referred as a performance measure which is used to analyse and evaluate efficiency of investment (). The ROI would be positive for the mentioned project for Blue Vision Labs if they are able to generate more revenue and profit in comparison to the total funding for the project along with increased number of loyal consumers for the innovated product. However, ROI would negative for Blue Vision Labs if they earn lower revenue than the total fund being invested for the project which may led them to face financial crisis in the business. The ROI is required to be positive for Blue Vision Labs from the innovative business case as it is going to boost them in having more confidence to make further innovation in their other existing products. Moreover, positive ROI in this project is going to help Blue Vision Labs earn more finances in supporting and increasing their business to new heights in the market to be a leading company in augmented reality industry.

Funding: The funding of the project is to be done by Blue Vision Labs by using finances from the profit earned in the previous years. Moreover, they are going to approach potential new investors who have interest in investing in improving augmented reality for the success of the innovation case. Further, Blue Vision is going to arrange funding for the project from crowd funding sources through use of social media and internet.

P7 Evaluating different tools that the organisation can use for developing, retaining and protecting knowledge and intellectual property (M5, D2)

The tools that are to be used by the organisation for developing, retaining and protecting knowledge and intellectual property are as follows: Copyrights: The Copyrights referred as the legal right granted to the creator of the original work for fixed number of years during which the work or idea cannot be used by any other for publishing, printing or other without the permission of the creator (Bettig, 2018). The copyright is an important aspect of intellectual property which helps to develop, retain and protect knowledge from being misused. Moreover, it helps the creator to get proper credits for their work (Peng et al. 2017). Thus, Blue Vision Labs are to ensure copyrighting their innovative and creative ideas to avoid them from being used without their permission. This is because if they ideas are being used by the competitors it is going to act as barrier to their proper return on investment as the consumers could not differentiate between their products and the competitors. This is going make the consumers more inclined towards competitors products resulting Blue Vision to get negative return on investment they made. The limitation related to copyrights is that it is costly in nature. Blue Vision Labs being a small business may experience financial constraint in copyrighting their ideas. Design rights: Design rights are an intellectual property right which protects the technical designs of any objects that are innovative in nature and are not properly utilitarian (Granstrand and Holgersson, 2015). The advantage of design rights for Blue Vision Labs is that it is going to help them protect the innovative technical design that is essential for developing new features in their products to ensure good ROI. The design rights are also going to help the organisation to avoid their competitors from using their technical design to create similar innovation in their products to create intense competition and barriers for effective ROI. (Refer to Appendix 2)

Conclusion

The discussion informs that innovation is essential for companies like Blue Vision Labs so that they are able to deliver better product experience for their consumers to get good return on investment through consumer satisfaction. The innovation is essential for their employees to help them develop new skills and knowledge to execute work more efficiently. The use of 4P's of innovation is going to help the organisation to create an overall change in the present way of executing business leading them to have the efficiency of having a better competitive advantage through good return on investment. The implementation of frugal innovation is going to help Blue Vision Labs in lowering the production cost as well as the complexity of the products. The commercial funnel and NPD is to be used for effective introduction of newly innovate product in the market. Lastly, to retain and protect developed knowledge and accessing intellectual property rights to ensure good ROI by an organisation they are to use tools like copyrights, design rights, patents and others.

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As asserted by Knorringa et al. (2016), the product cost can be lowered by cutting down its promotion cost and making other financial adjustments. This is because the organisation by cutting down the promotion cost may be able to save adequate finances to lower the final price of the product. Blue Vision Labs is seen to understand the fact and they operate promotion of their products through social media as it helps them to avoid increased expenditure in promotion along with assisting them to reach and attract huge population. Appendix 2:

Patents: A Patent is referred to as an exclusive right which is granted for main invention of a product or a process (Dratler Jr and McJohn, 2018). The advantage of Patent is that it offers the opportunity to the organisation to avoid other copying from them. It helps the organisation to keep their invention protected and retained for a specific period assisting to keep the competitors at bay (Fang et al. 2017). As mentioned by Dratler Jr and McJohn (2018), the disadvantage of patent is that it leads some of the invented information to be public. This may lead competitors to use the data for their benefit to create new innovation in their products to offer tough competition in the market. Moreover, if the Blue Vision Labs apply to protect knowledge and intellectual property through patent then the process is time-consuming. During the time patent is approved, the market has changed and the patent idea may not have any use.

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