Managing the new product development teams

Reading the twelfth chapter I found a term that it’s becoming very common in the modern practices by the companies. I am talking about cross-functional teams, which the author describes as a group of members drawn from more than one functional area. Managers believe they can ensure different perspectives and bases of expertise with cross-functional teams in order to solve problems.
I would like to share a video provided by a company called InSiteOne where their CFO Henry Schaffer talks about the benefits of creating cross-functional teams. This video it’s a great example of success when implementing this type of strategy, in the way they illustrate how the company increased productivity, started to solve problem quickly, and evolving with the new technologies. Despite the positive results it is also notable the employees satisfaction sharing knowledge with co-workers from different areas.

Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPp8S_wlnyE

Managing the new product development process

Managing the new product development process is the title of this week chapter. When I start reading about this topic I was more concern in the way companies are managing their internal resources in the development process. The author mentions many types of strategies in the development process in the book, but one particularly caught my attention – Involving Customers and Suppliers in Development Process.
Assuming that the majority of the companies aims customer satisfaction as one of the primary objectives, involving them in the development process seems to be an easy way to guarantee they will further acquire a product/service when the company launches it on the market. Although this type of procedure requires much more attention by the R&D.
Doing some research on involving customers while developing products I found this article that highlights important points to be considered and how to avoid frequent mistakes made by organizations.

Link:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:k-2zLkk_ZnoJ:i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bnet/Involving_Customers_in_Product_Development.pdf+Involving+Customers+in+Product+Development&hl=pt-BR&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjwnAwj-c0k8HWjyK4o7RV_ZcQ3VazfNx7m-d-nkfx12VSiPopn3Cby86_pgu4AFmRHgnXcT24USDXvvJvlX7ZwIAAe4ImZVgpjBvgCAgvyH5YZm_fTqOml6I3RsplcUMsFr8fM&sig=AHIEtbRWUUlkT5YiwZmwcAc1KrMKzUfJtQ

Organizing Innovation

Innovation is a word that we have been hearing many times associated with business in the last decade. It is very difficult to talk about any type of innovation without mentioning change, and my concern is if the organizations/leaders are preparing or organizing their organizational environment before starting to change. Organizing for innovation is the point discussed in the 10th chapter of the book, where we can identify different types of structures in organizations.

When we decide to innovate, we are looking for new forms of work that can be organized and conducted within an organization to encourage and promote competitive advantage. I found a video on youtube where the author tries to open our eyes and make us rethink the way we do business, the way we organize and the way we lead. It also covers how organizations and individuals, manage work processes in areas such as customer relationship management, performance and employee retention and knowledge management.

Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xHFfLTgjJI

Music Industry

With the high competitiveness and globalization, all products and services are going into a process of commodification. Companies are offering products and services in a very similar price range in a market that they need to find ways of seduction or mobilization of their audiences. I am not talking just about lower prices, promotions, establish loyalty programs, invest resources in research & innovation and other strategies they been using , they need to make the consumers feel delighted with the new invention/innovation in order to mobilize them.

Given the example of the digital music industry distribution, we saw that the record labels were left beyond. Now we can say they have two major challenges: be frequently updated with the market evolution and be capable to attract consumers in order to facilitate access and customer demands of music. The other one is their battle against piracy, most common ones are illegal downloads and file sharing.

While doing a more deeply research in the music industry I found this article titled “Piracy continues to cripple music industry as sales fall 10%” written in January of 2010. The author gives us some interesting and recent data about the music industry around the world. Another controversial topic covered in this article is the reason why the sales are falling during the last decade, with the record labels blaming the piracy and in the other hand the critics accusing them of failing to keep up with changing consumer demands also arguing that new services such as download stores, streaming sites and subscription offers were responsible for these numbers.

The link;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/21/music-industry-piracy-hits-sales

Sony Ericsson joint venture

One of the terms covered in the eighth chapter of the book “Collaboration Strategies” is Joint Venture. After reading some literature about this topic I was able to update myself with it and find that it is a very common business procedure that is being used for at least 30 years.
I good example of this type of alliance can be found on this article that talks about the situation between Sony and Ericsson who decided to Joint Venture creating Sony Ericsson to move into the Smartphone market. There were rumors that Sony may consider buying out Ericsson's stake in the joint venture, which has in recent years struggled with a sharp drop in market share and revenue.
This model differs from the Commercial Society, for the fact that both companies involved in a Joint Venture do not lose their legal status. These partnerships may well be dissolved soon after the completion of the project. Many companies use this tool, for example, market penetration, to join their quality or develop new technology.
It was interesting reading this article in the way it illustrate how big companies implements this business strategy and sometimes especially as a costumer it is hard for us to identify the benefits of it (cost, accessibility).

The link:
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=458753

What is strategy?

Our chapter is Defining the Organization’s Strategic Direction, but before that step there is a very important point that many business owners fail to understand which is have a clearly vision of what strategy is. I found a video called “What is strategy?” on youtube where Michael Porter during a lecture in London explains what strategy is. The most important thing that caught my attention in this video is how companies confuse strategy with goals, objectives and other issues. It was great to find this video because it completes our book information’s and you start to look at some steps taken by organizations from a different perspective.

Continuing with defining organizations strategic direction, we can say that since the development of the five forces by Porter, it became a crucial framework for the industry analysis and business strategy development. In other words, it can help evaluate the behavior of organizations identifying their competitive position in the sector in which it operates.

The video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibrxIP0H84M

Timing of Entry

The fifth chapter talks about timing of entry and the author gives us a number of advantages and disadvantages of entering the market early, late or as a pioneer. While I was reading some articles around this subject, I was concern about what we should consider as a disadvantage or as a well elaborated business strategy created and adopted by innovative companies.
A great example to help describe this issue is Apple first mover Ipad. Despite the great success in sales and consumer acceptance for the new product, Apple received several critics about Ipad’s performance. Based on some of these critics I decided to research more about this product and try to understand what was happening to a company like Apple that we are used to see always a step over the competition. That’s when I found this article titled “Are iPad's Limitations Design Decisions?” where the author explains which decisions were strategic toward the future of personal computer and the ones that so far seems to be product limitations.
What I could learn from this article is that there are a few companies that have the ability to commit mistakes or delay some actions in order to take future advantages of it. They have the knowledge capable to use some errors as part of their business strategy.

The link:
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?994