role of Creative Change and Innovation assignment research methods towards encouraging innovation within organisations
Question
Task: How organisation use Creative Change and Innovation assignment research methods to promote innovation within the organisation.
Answer
Introduction
This Creative Change and Innovation assignment will explore the role of innovation towards organisation development and growth. For any organisation, it is important to implement some kind of change with the increased demands of the market. In order to meet these changes, the organisation must comply with innovative ideas. Innovation will lead the organisation to the pinnacle of success. In this Creative Change and Innovation assignment, Unilever is chosen as the reference company. Mismanagement of the supply chain in the organisation has been intensified by social media platforms. At the same time, the perception of these issues within the organisation will be identified in this essay.
Impacts of mismanagement of the supply chain on the internal operations of Unilever will be demonstrated as well.
Main Body
The Creative Change and Innovation assignment research shows Unilever is a multinational company based in London, the United Kingdom. The organisation is currently the largest soap producer in the world. The organisation mainly deals with consumer goods and right now is serving 190 countries across the globe. Owning more than 400 brands, helped this organisation to earn 52.444 billion euros as per the report of 2021 (Nunes et al., 2020). On an everyday basis 2.5 billion people across the world use products of Unilever. In order to expand the business territory, the organisation in 2020 invested around 800 million euros for innovation purposes. Innovation is one of the main criteria to bring changes to the organisation.
The Creative Change and Innovation assignment research reveals the organisation is dependent on the external and internal surroundings while doing business with clients. In the meantime, Unilever has faced serious issues in supply chain management. The supply chain is basically a network of stakeholders, organisations, and resources associated with the production and distribution of a particular product. Disruption in the supply chain can seriously affect the organization's internal functions. Unilever also had serious issues with its supply chain. Oxfam and Unilever started their journey together in Asian countries in order to reduce poverty in the country (Koberg and Longoni, 2019). The charity organisation found some issues in the supply chain while working for the welfare of the labourers. Unilever was simply following international standards and local policies while taking help from the workers and providing them proper compensation. While making a report, most of the labourers did not know about the standards of the company policies while a few stood against the low wages provided by Unilever. Unnecessary risks at the workplace were one of the complaints against Unilever. At the same time, Unilever was guilty of working labourers for extended hours and exploiting them. These issues actually created turbulence in the supply chain of the organisation working in Asian countries (Craighead et al., 2020). The organisation provided the labourers poor compensation while exploiting them to do more work. Another instance happened in African countries. Low wages along with the exploitation of labour were the main complaints against the organisation. There the organisation and its security guards had a fight with the workers who were fighting for their rights. The huge commotion stole the attention of social media for a while. At the same time, the organisation received much criticism for this reason.
Due to the pandemic, the organisation also had to face problems in its supply chain. Due to the pandemic, for long days, the operations were stopped in various locations. At the same time, lockdowns were imposed in various countries. The Creative Change and Innovation assignment investigations show Automatically, the suppliers and resources could not reach Unilever. The supply chain of Unilever was disrupted during this time. The market became very volatile for at least two years. Resources were short, employees could not work amidst the pandemic situation. The shortage of resources actually promoted hikes in prices across the world (Wieland, 2021). The pandemic created a huge disturbance in the supply chain of Unilever. In order to protect the employees from the virus, operations were halted for a long time. For the last two years, this disturbance in the supply chain of Unilever has also stolen the attention of the media. Social media was talking about the disrupted supply chain and its impacts on the organisation. The perception of the organisation about this sudden change in the supply chain is another main topic of this Creative Change and Innovation assignment. This actually changed the internal operations of this organisation. Disruption in the supply chain was one of the main reasons behind the shortage of products. Unilever during those times, could not meet the requirements of the market. Increased demands of the customers actually made them raise the prices of the products. Unavailability of the products made customers disappointed very much and it affected Unilever significantly. In 2019, the revenue of the company was 51,980 million euros while in 2020 it was only 50,724 million euros (Statista, 2022). The wide customer base of the organisation was forced to switch to some other options due to the unavailability of the products from Unilever. In the future, Unilever has to pay the price of such disruption in the supply chain system. Productivity of the organisation will be lowered down due to such disruption. The organisation earned a bad reputation while managing the workforce in Asian and African countries. It is a negative result of the internal management of Unilever. This disruption will actually influence the customers to switch to some other companies. Other companies may have affordable price ranges while offering good quality products. This will actually steal the customers from the organisation. Less numbers of customers will be responsible for less profit. This way, the motivation of the organisation will decrease. This will have a significant impact on future productivity. Less work pressure will make the employees slow and thus they will not meet the target. Overall productivity of Unilever will face the turmoil due to interruption in supply chain. The Creative Change and Innovation assignment research shows even in the future, the problems faced by the customers will lead them to depend on some other organisations. It will have a significant impact on the revenue of the organisation. Unilever may face tough competition from other similar companies working in the relevant industry.
These disruptions in the supply chain actually were intensified by social media. More people got to know about this disruption in the supply chain because of social media. In order to resolve this issue, the organisation is trying to come up with innovative ideas to change the situation the organisation. In the meantime, these innovative ideas will be able to bring changes that will influence the market designated for Unilever. With the help of the research and development team of the organisation, a few recommendations were selected for Unilever. First of all, the business policies and standards will be adjusted to deliver better quality jobs while paying the labourers appropriate wages and benefits. They should be given minimum wages as per their job roles and the employment act of the particular country. At the same time, the safety of the workers will be kept in mind for better functions of the organisation. Biometric systems, online shopping, and newsletter systems should be incorporated using various technologies to keep the workers safe during any kind of crisis. Unilever should align its business processes with these policies. In the meantime, the organisation should build a communicative culture within the supply chain so that the participants can express their ideas to Unilever (Morden, 2022). A feedback system should be introduced to the employees of Unilever. It will be an anonymous way to provide feedback about the internal operations of the organisation. In feedback, one can easily attach a few recommendations for Unilever as well. Unilever should open up to the innovative and creative ideas provided by the supply chain system. In order to understand basic human rights, Unilever should collaborate with other organisations as well. They should ensure that workers are able to get a sustainable livelihood while working for them. Unilever should launch some programmes with a motive to advance the operations of the supply chain. In this programme associated employees will be trained (Oxfam, 2022). A few new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc will be introduced into the system. Most importantly, these ideas and their progress will be shared on various social media platforms. These recommendations will be impactful to renew the processes of the supply chain.
Conclusion
Unilever being one of the largest producers of consumer goods across the world, it is important to understand its issues with the external environment. Mismanagement of the supply chain while serving 190 countries, became a huge issue and received enough attention from the world. In order to mitigate the issue, the organisation needed to think of some solutions which were feasible at that time. In this Creative Change and Innovation assignment, the issue of Unilever has been critically demonstrated while the perception of the issue has been identified. Potential risk factors were identified while demonstrating the issue of Unilever. In order to mitigate the issue, a few innovative recommendations are added as well.
References
Craighead, C.W., Ketchen Jr, D.J. and Darby, J.L., (2020). Pandemics and supply chain management research: Toward a theoretical toolbox. Decision Sciences,Creative Change and Innovation assignment51(4), pp.838-866.
Koberg, E. and Longoni, A., (2019). A systematic review of sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains. Journal of cleaner production, 207, pp.1084-1098.
Morden, J., (2022). Lessons from Unilever’s global supply chain challenges. [online] Devex. Available at:
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 120, p.109658.
Oxfam, (2022). Labor Rights in Unilever’s Supply Chain | Oxfam International. [online] Oxfam International. Creative Change and Innovation assignmentAvailable at:
Statista, (2022). Unilever Group's global revenue 2021 | Statista. [online] Statista. Available at:
Wieland, A., (2021). Dancing the supply chain: Toward transformative supply chain management. Journal of Supply Chain Management,Creative Change and Innovation assignment57(1), pp.58-73.
