Telstra’s Vision and Strategy
The purpose of this report is to conduct an assessment on the entrepreneurial health of Telstra. This is being conducted to gain a deeper and wider understanding about the entrepreneurial intensity and also to understand the climate which is needed for corporate entrepreneurship. The involvement and the level of innovation utilized by an organization in building new strategies and plans. Telstra is a telecommunication company and have a very strong base in Australia. It is the company which is involved in building and operating telecommunication networks, mobiles, pay television, internet connections and several other products and services that makes this company the biggest telecommunication organization in Australia.
Telstra has a very clear vision that is to be a world class company of technology which enables people to connect. Being a telecommunication company Telstra works to provide the best connectivity services of internet and telecommunication, which helps the people to easily connect. To fulfill their vision the company has a basic strategy which involves three key aspects, which are driving value from the core, improve customer advocacy and create new growth businesses.
The main purpose of Telstra is to build an excelleb nt connected future for each and every person. Telstra believes that to create an excellent future, it has to create the essential parts for each and every person, no matter in whichever market they are operating. Telstra also has an aim of providing maximum people with accessibility of technology, which brings economic, social and cultural changes (Albertí et al., 2017).
The different innovation concepts that can be utilized are-
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- Discontinuous Innovations
The discontinuous innovations as the name suggests are discontinuous in nature to each customer segment and they only include the products which are new to this world. The new products which have been introduced in the market are very distinctive from the products which are already available in the market. This innovation concept also involves the reshaping of the market and the competition. For instance, Telstra introduces a lot of new products which have empowered people by changing the way people communicate (Chompunth, 2017).
- Continuous Innovations
The concept of continuous innovations is used to bring marginal changes in a product which already exists in the market and is also conducted without bringing any changes in the customer’s habits. Many a time a customer would not see the alteration and approach in it with similar knowledge that he had before. For instance, Telstra creates minute changes in a mobile phone and re-launches it in the market.
- Dynamically Continuous
Innovation Concepts
This concept of innovation fall between the continuous and the discontinuous innovation. This concept brings changes in the habits of the customer, but they are not as big as changes, which are conducted through discontinuous innovation and they are also not that minute which is conducted in the continuous concept. For instance, Telstra also offers pay television, which was created to replace satellite television (García, Deserti and Teixeira, 2017).
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This is a known fact that there is a huge connection between entrepreneurship and innovation, which is also considered as a driving force to achieve wealth and value creations. The different levels of entrepreneurship are known as entrepreneurial intensity. Thus, there is an evident connection between the innovation and entrepreneurial intensity. Also, the climate for corporate entrepreneurship requires innovations. This shows the direct connection between the corporate intensity and the climate for corporate entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial intensity is a part of the complete business while the climate is a part of the entrepreneurial intensity. This is also a difference as entrepreneurial intensity has a number of sections in which the climate for the corporate entrepreneurship is just a part.
The research approach has been conducted in three ways, that is-
- Internal Audit
The internal audit in Telstra is conducted through a Group Internal Audit. The information which is gained through this audit is about the company’s governance, internal control processes and risk management. All these information tells about the climate of the corporate entrepreneurship and also suggests some changes which should be taken for the betterment of the company’s performance. This audit report informs about the functional responsibility and its current level. The audit also informs about the various information which is required for understanding a company in a much better way (Hirschi, 2013).
- External Audit
In Telstra, the external audit is conducted through Ernest & Young. The Ernest & Young organization regularly conducts audits in Telstra and publish reports. These reports contain assessment reports about the objectivity of the company and its working. Also about the performance of the company under the changing circumstances and assessment about the management policies and the climate of the entrepreneurship all is assessed and then the evaluation is presented for bringing an improvement. The information which is acquired through this audit is very beneficial for making the stakeholders understand the different positives and negatives associated with the audit report.
- Risk Management
The risk management of a company provides with various information which help in assessing that organization in a much better way. Every organization has a way of conducting their risk management process, which provides withe various threats which the company is facing and also the hidden opportunities which should be taken into consideration to innovatively solve a problem. Telstra approach to managing risk management is through continuous innovation process which help in reducing the risks and also ensure smooth working of the company. The risk management process is very important for the assessment of an organization (Jeraj, 2014).
Connection to Entrepreneurial Intensity and Climate for Corporate Entrepreneurship
The data analysis will be conducted in two parts-
The different layers of entrepreneurship are known as entrepreneurial intensity. For effectively conducting the assessment of entrepreneurial intensity there are a number of aspects which have to be taken into consideration for better analysis.
The frequency of entrepreneurship is dependent on the pro-activeness of the company into different events and this says a lot about the approaches of the organization. Telstra produces a number of products which are available in the market. The company has an agenda of bringing people closer and providing the best technology. In this initiative the company keeps building new plans and launching new products. The company is a part of a number of events which shows a high level of frequency of entrepreneurship, which is also known as the entrepreneurial orientation (Kaminski, Hopp and Tykvova, 2016).
Innovation and entrepreneurial intensity are two aspects of a company which help in garnering value and wealth. These two are the main driving force of a company, especially a telecommunication company that is always in the emergency of building new products and staying up to date. In Telstra, innovations are given a lot of importance, as they have identified their main driving forces. The company has a special tool kit for innovation, that includes-
- M&A- Telstra has adopted this tool as this will help the company in adding more and new revenue streams, new geographic presence and also new capabilities.
- R&D (internal) – Telstra has added this into their innovation tool kit because it is very helpful in elaborating the core features of the product in a much wider way to get the attention of the customers (Neneh, 2014).
- CVC- This tool helps Telstra to identify new growth opportunities which are available in the new market or a new geographical location. This tool also helps in providing longer visibilities of business models and new technology (Zheng, 2012).
- Business Incubation- Telstra has this tool because to promote the new ideas and plans. This will help in launching new products and startups which will later help the organization as the relationship will get long term (Kovac and Kotnik, 2013).
Being the biggest telecommunication company in Australia, adds many pressures on Telstra, which forces the company to take risks. Telstra risk taking strategy is very straight that is they believe in taking small risks which are calculative and if any threats arise then the company can utilize their continuous innovation model for getting immediate and effective solution which will not hamper the company in a larger way (Leitão, 2017).
Telstra is involved in the production of a number of products which keeps the company’s involvement in a number of events. The company has a high level of pro-activeness due to the different products it produces and the updated versions of them. This helps the company to maintain their strong hold in the market too. The company’s attempt to practice more innovative ideas to expand their market and support new ideas, all these activities says a lot about the pro-activeness of the Telstra. The proper utilization of the innovation tool kit also helps the company in getting into new and more ventures (Menke, 2018).
The need for an effective climate for the corporate entrepreneurship is very important. It is the main key which will help in the functioning of the different aspects of the entrepreneurship effectively. The assessment of the climate of corporate entrepreneurship in Telstra requires some factors which have to be addressed here. They are-
Internal and External Audits and Risk Management Approach
The support of the management is a significant aspect which is required in every organization for maintaining an entrepreneurial climate. Be it the formal or the informal interactions between the staff and the managers, this enables the employees to work innovatively for the organization. At Telstra, the support of the management is with their team as they want to perfectly implement their innovations tool kit. But there are many conflicts which arise due to some misunderstandings and confusion. Management support also includes that there should be clarity of thoughts and opinions in which Telstra lacks a bit behind (Mesén Figueroa, 2012).
For a company to work effectively in team work there is a very crucial need of independence. This independence should be provided to members of the team. The members of a team in a company should be given the opportunity to choose their work on their own while working in a team. When a team member chooses his own work, then he is able to provide more discretion to his work as compared to when he is allotted with the work. In Telstra, team work is conducted, but there is a team head who allots the other members with their respective work (Nicoara, 2010).
For maintaining the entrepreneurial climate, it is very important for rewarding the deserving employees with substantial rewards. This will encourage the employees to even perform better and achieve higher heights. In Telstra, the employees are regularly awarded with rewards which provides them with a feeling of appreciation and also being acknowledged. This pushes the employees to do even better work and help in fulfilling the company’s objectives more quickly (Pasek, 2018).
The entrepreneurial climate does not only relate to the employees, but it also depends on the way the managers and the employees build their strategies and plans. In Telstra, each new idea, plan, strategy, and any initiative are given a good amount of time, which is utilized for research and analysis, so as to be completely sure before executing them(Shepherd and Patzelt, 2015).
Organizational boundaries can be referred as the key standards which are used for operating, key practices and rules and regulations for conducting a big task. The other aspects which comes under organizational boundaries are the level of clarity which the organization have about the expectations which a company has for its employees. In Telstra, each and every employee is hired with a basic objective and in addition to it the company has a set of rules and guideline related to abilities which every employee should possess. This is also one of the core reasons why Telstra is so successful in Australia (Teixeira, Deserti and García, 2017).
Pro-activeness and Risk-taking Strategies
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Conclusion
The entrepreneurial health of the Telstra fulfills a number of aspects which are the core rules for entrepreneurial intensity, the climate for the corporate entrepreneurship and also for innovations. But there are certain concerns which are related to the conflict between the management and also the less independence which is given to the employees. The company should work on these threats as they will result in bigger problems if they are not solved time being. Also, the organization has high innovation standards and pro-activeness which will act as the main driving forces in the future and helping the company to continue its strong hold in Australia.
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