INNOVATION

Innovation

Innovation

Innovation can be defined as “…the management of all the activities involved in the process of idea generation, technology development, manufacturing and marketing of a new (or improved) product or manufacturing process or equipment.” Innovation is usually misinterpreted as company's think only new products can be an innovation, but this is only one type of innovation.

This report tends to explain about innovative culture with reference to an organisation. It explains about the factors which enhances creativity, which further helps in innovation. It shows the properties of creativity and their application upon an organisation. It is also analysed that whether the organisation is innovative or not.

The organisation in this report is known as SEMCO. It is a Brazilian constructing company owned by Ricardo Semler. Ricardo Semler did some changes in the administration which helped him to work in the fluctuating economy of Brazil. Those changes are considered in the report and are fully analysed.

Introduction

To be an innovative organisation, it is important for the organisation to be creative. Creativity is the main base of the innovation. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1999), psychologists tend to see creativity as a mental process whereas creativity is as much a cultural and social as it is a psychological event. Creativity is thus needed to be understood properly to know about innovation.

SEMCO as an innovative organization

As it is discussed earlier, Semco has various properties which enhance creativity. Therefore, it can be regarded as an innovative organization. Following are its various processes where innovation was introduced: -

Structure

Semco used to work in a traditional South American way till 1980 when Ricardo Semler took over as CEO. On the first day as CEO Ricardo Semler fired two third of al top managers (www.bbc.co.uk). He altered the long hierarchical structure to only three levels of hierarchy. The structure of Semco is much like ...