Fulton Hogan Industries: Implementing Innovation for Competitive Advantage
Question:
Discuss About The Build Sustain Innovative Work Environment?
This is report, which will evaluate the ability of the operations named Fulton Hogan Industries Pty Ltd to take risk. In today’s market, innovation and success is necessary for gaining competitive advantage in the market. However, innovation is associated with risk so the report will provide information about present practices within the organization and its sufficiency in implementing innovation.
Fulton Hogan Industries Pty Ltd is prepared to take risk as they have already implemented strategies for using innovation for gaining sustainability and competitive advantage in the market (Fulton Hogan, 2018). The organization implemented innovation at multiple aspects starting from customer centric innovation to innovation in projects. This shows that the organization has been aiming for continuous improvement in their process so that they can produce better consumer products and improving of all the stakeholders. Similarly, the organization is trying to set benchmark by developing innovative projects which will bring about a massive change to technology and industry. These strategies applied by the company shows that they are ready to take the risk to succeed in the market where there is tough competition.
As stated by Bowers and Khorakian, (2014), bring about a drastic change within the organization will be always be risky for organizational sustainability. However, the higher the risk associated with a task, the higher will be the return. Globalization has changed the current market scenario where there is immense level of competition among all market competitor. Therefore, risk taking is necessary for gaining competitive advantage in the market. Majority of the projects and strategies requires the organization to take considerable amount of risk. Change management deals with bringing about changes within the organizational processes and polices so that the productivity can be increased by decreasing the cost structure and increasing operational efficiency. Therefore, greater the change more will be the amount of risk and similarly for innovation the amount of risk increases with the increase in the degree of innovation (Simonelli, 2014). The current market trend suggests spending large sum of amount on research and development is a common market practice among all the companies. Therefore, the organizational processes and policies are changing rapidly to accommodate the current market needs. Organizations are more focused on mitigating the current and changing needs of the consumers. As business has become more customer centric use of innovation is essential for change management and competitive advantage in the market and this involves taking higher risk.
The organization has adapted innovation into their business model as innovation has become a hyperdrive in the market. In order to achieve bigger goals, the organization have taken bigger risk of innovation. The organization believes that making mistakes is the key to learning and organization growth. The management feels that majority of the time their gamble will not pay off but the remaining few times will make up for the failures. These shows that organization believes in innovation where even the employees are allowed to voice their opinion on new innovative ideas (Fultonhogan.com, 2018). The mangers have a positive attitude towards failure, instead of blaming the employees they try to assess the situation and the adjacent reasons for the failure. They encourage the employees to come up with innovative ideas so that the employees can grow at both personal and organizational level. Fulton Hogan has been able to develop many innovative products in the last fiscal year which reflects their attitude. The organization has developed a consumer challenge space in Blue skies and they are trying to share knowledge and fulfil the consumer needs by using innovative ideas. The organization is not about failure and has aimed to provide best quality service to the consumers from the very start till the end.
Innovation and Risk-Taking for Competitive Advantage
The reviews of the employees on various websites suggest the employees are very happy with the management and the organizational policies. The employees are made to work hard and provided with different sort of training so that they are able to expand their skill and knowledge at personal and organizational level. The organization has received an international award for front line innovation (Fulton Hogan, 2018). The organization has kept an open forum for discussing new and innovative ideas where the staffs from both front line and back office are encouraged to provide suggestions. This shows that employees are provided with enough freedom to voice their opinion. This has increased the engagement of employees within the organization and they have a high level of motivation. The annual innovation report of the organization throws a clear light on the fact that the organization has come up with various innovative products by solving the problem of the consumers.
The organization will have to develop an efficient performance management system which will monitor and evaluate the performance of the employees on a regular basis. Therefore, by constantly identifying the mistakes of the employees, the organization will be able to make improve the organizational productivity. However, the employees should be encouraged to work more innovatively even if there are few mistakes. It is not possible for all the innovative ideas to work out but even if 10% of them are successful then it will easily cover up for the losses (Fulton Hogan, 2018). Therefore, the employees should be pushed to try hard and encouraged to invent their own products, solution and market so that the organization can maintain their sustainability. In order to develop an innovative culture, the organization should have a positive influence on them. The employees should be made to learn from their mistakes through discussions and guidance. Punishments should be avoided as it demotivates the employees and prevents them to think about new ideas. Failure is a part of success and the increase in the number failures increases the chances of success (Fulton Hogan, 2018). Therefore, the management will have to be tolerant with the employees and they will have to ignore the mistakes of the employees and encourage them to try again. These approaches are key to developing an innovative culture within the organizational workforce.
It is quite difficult for managers to make the employees be more innovative as most of them are afraid to speak their mind to the management. Therefore, in order to develop a creative environment, it is essential for managers to let the front line now that management is fully supporting them. Moreover, there should be effective two-way communication between the management and the employees so that the employees are aware of the organizational goals and objectives (Santos-Vijande, López-Sánchez & Rudd, 2016). Thus, by letting them, know about the bigger picture, the employees feel that they are a part of the organization and they confidently develop innovative ideas and discuss with the management. The management will have to develop an implicit contract with the employees where the front-line workers will produce what the management wants and vice versa. This means that employees will know that the management is supporting them and the jobs will be determined broadly. The management should also move around people from time to time so that every one gets the opportunity of learning something new which will increase their domain knowledge and increase their skill level which will facilitate both the organization and the employees personally.
Developing an Innovative Culture within the Organisational Workforce
In order to make the employees understand the working conditions in a better way, the middle managers will have to increase the effectiveness of the organization by improving the quality of working conditions within the organization. it is essential to provide workers with suitable working condition so that they can perform at their optimum level at all times. Moreover, the employees will be more productive if all the right tools are available to them. Therefore, by accommodating convenience of the workers the organization will increase the organizational effectiveness (Dul & Ceylan, 2014). These factors are crucial for motivating and demotivating the employees as if the management are reluctant in solving the simple issues within the workplace the employees will not put an effort to develop innovative ideas for improving competitive advantage. The organization should put emphasis on encouraging team bonding which could include team activities and providing reward and recognition to teams as a whole. This is due to the fact successful innovation in most of the times is better obtained by joint effort so appreciating teams and working in the team is one of the best practices for innovative organizations. Moreover, the teams should be provided with enough freedom top work on their own (Amabile & Pratt, 2016). This enables the workforce to take their own decisions. Hierarchical status affects the mindset of the employees as they may feel that their ideas are judged based on their hierarchical level. The functional units should be distributed evenly and the procurement team should be given instructions to support the teams and improve their productivity.
The structure of the organization is one of the hindrance that the organization may face as innovative should keep their level of hierarchy as flat as possible so that none of the employees feel that less importance is being given to their ideas. As the hierarchical level of the organization is not flat, with due time some employees may feel this. The fear of failure is a big hindrance as most teams will not want to fail. Most of the innovations within the organization are customer centric which has been the main focus in the fiscal year of 2017. Therefore, the organization will have to broaden their horizon that is diversification of innovation into different fields (Fultonhogan.com, 2018). In order to execute innovative ideas, the organization would require huge sum of money which could be a problem with due time. As innovative organization is a conceptual framework, it is difficult to make changes as getting rid of old habits is tough. The organization would be facing different types of risk factors. Capital is necessary for smooth operation of the organization and innovative ideas require capital to be executed which may not result in a success. Therefore, even though most of their innovative ideas have paid off, the organization may face issues in raising funds for their innovative projects.
Innovative culture within an organization without effective leadership is like a building without foundation. The key to a successful innovation output is solid leadership and therefore it must be very seriously taken into consideration for maximizing successes. The leaders need to promote and assist innovation inside the organization they are working.
Efficient Performance Management for Sustainable Development
Failure in practicing what a leader preaches would make the employees feel frustrated and at the same time demotivated, which would in turn bring innovation output to a rapid stop. A successful innovation leader might not be a creative genius, but they must have the ability of communicating and motivating the employees into joining the innovation process. An innovative leader must bring in transparency and trust within the team so that new relationships and experiences can get formed (Llopis, 2014). A manager must be able to able to become a collaborative leader who does not refrain from taking the leap of faith together with the team for discovering new ways of creating greater outcomes. An innovative leader must become a change agent to be able to challenge the team members into thinking more critically and seeing through the lens of constant development for supporting constructive disruption. It is important that the leader finds the right combination of team members, for which they need to course correct on the way.
In today’s world, making investments in learning and training programs have become more important than ever, especially in terms of developing innovation skills. However, many of the executives have failed in understanding how to provide better opportunities in enhancing these skills. It has been seen that there is a rise in regenerating and improving training and learning programs for innovation skill development (Olenski, 2015). Learning and training opportunities must focus more on changing how employees are interpreting, processing and analyzing what they know. There must be separate formal forms of learning with the help of courses and even informal coaching and mentoring. Restructuring the learning approach and tools used must match the diametric forms, preferences, and expectations of employees. It is necessary that organizations adopt on-demand and mobile solutions for making the learning options more easily convenient for the employees. Employees must have the opportunity of cross-training so that their awareness and knowledge extend and they can truly turn out to be innovators. Providing them access to a professional network would also help them grow.
Managers should regularly evaluate their own approaches on a daily basis to check the consistency of their decisions. The managers deal with many teams at the same time with multiple project at the same time so checking consistency ensures that the manager is not being biased towards certain projects than the others. This is also done to ensure that the objectives are specific, realistic, attainable and measurable while taking the project context into consideration. The managers should evaluate all the time the feasibility of the decision and how it will affect the business. This enables the managers to look at the overall project plan and examine its feasibility with organizational context. The gaps within the project can also be identified using this method so that limitations can be defined. Moreover, the managers will be able to understand the overview of the cost and benefit. The manager will be able to understand the whether the benefits can be achieved on time or not and the project will be beneficial to the organization.
Conclusion
In context to projects, it is essential for managers to go for consistency rather than idealistic approach. Therefore, they will have to consult all the internal stakeholders of the organization so they can set realistic goals for the organization. Therefore, developing the project plan at first and use of effective project management methodologies such as Agile will provide a consistent result (Gosling et al., 2015). This will consist of examining the project scope and scale, resources, geographies, internal quality initiatives and risk factors to improve the project consistency. The construction companies have been using effective project management methodologies for improving the quality of the projects within the organization. The top construction companies in the world are focused on developing an effective flow of communication with the organization, continuous planning, budget and cost control and reporting systems that are automated. These ways have been effective for major global construction companies and Fulton Hogan should use similar strategies for maintaining consistency within projects.
Physical environment of the workforce will directly impact innovation and the workforce. The surrounding working environment may motivate an employee to develop creative ideas which is not at all possible with normal working environments. Nature has a deep impact on the human mind and organizations tend to use green offices filled with sunlight, and trees, which reduces the amount of mental stress within the employees. there are four types of environmental space which supports innovation within a firm. They are stimulate, collaborate, play and reflect. Stimulate deals with the space of inspiration where the employees will be able to draw emotional, physical and mental inspiration from the surroundings (Groves, 2013). The environment will help the employees to concentrate and focus more on the problems of the consumers and they will be able to develop innovative ideas much faster. The next factor is reflect, which signifies a place to think. Reflective space allows the employees to recharge and refresh so that they can think uninterruptedly while dealing with a specific problem. Therefore, maintaining a balance between private and public place is essential for getting quality creative results. The next space is collaborate, which enables the employees to share their ideas to each other so that they can come up with the solution in a better way. These places are generally unofficial rooms where knowledge is shared in non-hierarchical ways. This is one of the best ways to interact with the colleagues. The last environmental space is play which is used for connecting and exploring. This space improves the team boding within the employees as they are able to interact casually and they are able to develop better working communication. This shows that physical environment plays a key role in improving creativity among employees in corporate organizations. The above-mentioned changes will be effective for improving creativity within the organization.
The legislative framework that the organization have to comply to are Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 and the Contractors Debts Act 1997, Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2004, Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 and the Subcontractors’ Charges Act 1974, Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002, Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 and the Worker’s Liens Act 1893 and Construction Contracts (Security of Payments) Act 2004 (LegalVision, 2016). These legislations will affect the operations of the organization.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the organization has taken initiatives to develop innovative culture within the organization. Fulton Hogan Industries Pty Ltd has offered their workforce with enough opportunity of using creativity and developing ideas. However, an ideal innovative culture requires flat hierarchical structure so Fulton Hogan Industries Pty Ltd has to improve their organizational structure in order to increase their productivity in terms of creativity and innovation.
References
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Bowers, J., & Khorakian, A. (2014). Integrating risk management in the innovation project. European Journal of innovation management, 17(1), 25-40.
Dul, J., & Ceylan, C. (2014). The Impact of a creativity?supporting work environment on a firm’s product innovation performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(6), 1254-1267.
Fulton Hogan. (2018). Fulton Hogan gains leading international award for frontline innovation – Fulton Hogan. Fulton Hogan. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.fultonhogan.com/fulton-hogan-gains-leading-international-award-frontline-innovation/
Fulton Hogan. (2018). Innovation report – Fulton Hogan. Fulton Hogan. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.fultonhogan.com/what-we-do/specialty-products-and-services/innovation-report/
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Fultonhogan.com. (2018). Fultonhogan.com. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.fultonhogan.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/80409-Fulton-Hogan-Annual-Innovation-Report-2017-Interactive-6.pdf
Gosling, J., Naim, M., Towill, D., Abouarghoub, W., & Moone, B. (2015). Supplier development initiatives and their impact on the consistency of project performance. Construction management and economics, 33(5-6), 390-403.
Groves, K. (2013). Four types of space that support creativity & innovation in business. The Company Culture Blog » Enviable Workplace. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://enviableworkplace.com/four-types-of-space-that-support-creativity-innovation-in-business/
LegalVision.(2016). Introduction to Construction Law in Australia – LegalVision. LegalVision. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://legalvision.com.au/introduction-to-construction-law-in-australia/
Llopis, G. (2014). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/04/07/5-ways-leaders-enable-innovation-in-their-teams/2/#59bfcf374be7
Olenski, S. (2015). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2015/07/20/8-key-tactics-for-developing-employees/#7952a4646373
Santos-Vijande, M. L., López-Sánchez, J. Á., & Rudd, J. (2016). Frontline employees’ collaboration in industrial service innovation: routes of co-creation’s effects on new service performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44(3), 350-375.
Simonelli, M. (2014). Risk Taking Is Essential for Innovation | Bank Systems & Technology. Bank Systems & Technology. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://www.banktech.com/management-strategies/risk-taking-is-essential-for-innovation/a/d-id/1297805
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