RESEARCH METHODS..........................................................................................................2 PART A) ....................................................................................................................................2 HISTORY OF KINETIX............................................................................................................2 VISION&MISSION....................................................................................................................3 QUALITY POLICY...................................................................................................................3 Brand Value & Components of Brand Identity..........................................................................3 WHAT IS INNOVATION?........................................................................................................4 Goals of Innovation.....................................................................................................................5 CHANGES IN INNOVATION..................................................................................................6 Additional to past vs. present innovation process.......................................................................7 PART B).....................................................................................................................................9 1)R&D INVESTIGATIONS.......................................................................................................9 R&D Functions...........................................................................................................................9 Product R&D.............................................................................................................................10 Service R&D:............................................................................................................................10 Scientific Freedom....................................................................................................................11 2) OCTOPUS STRATEGY INVESTIGATION......................................................................13 Strategic Alliances....................................................................................................................13 Stages of Alliance Formation....................................................................................................13 Reasons for entering a strategic alliance...................................................................................14 Strategic alliances of the firm...................................................................................................15 How They benefit from the strategic alliances.........................................................................15 Risks of strategic alliances network..........................................................................................17 Selection Risk:..........................................................................................................................17 Monitoring Risk:.......................................................................................................................17 Failure Identification Risk: ......................................................................................................18 Strategic objectives related risks...............................................................................................18 Operations objectives related risks:..........................................................................................19 Reporting objectives related risks:............................................................................................20 Compliance objectives related risks..........................................................................................20 3)OTHER ISSUES ...................................................................................................................20 REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................24
1
KINETIX RESEARCH METHODS In the preparation period of our project, we have benefited from the official website of KINETIX, face to face interview and some specific articles regarding R&D and innovation issues. We mostly gathered information from the interview with product manager of KINETIX sport shoes which includes valuable datas for our research. After working on these datas, we have organized and analyzed the information and we reached the point to be able to see product development, R&D, innovation practices in KINETIX. Working on specific topics, individually, regarding the innovations in KINETIX, we achieved our goal as a team. During the preperation period of the project, the most important knowledge that contributed to our research has been the team discussions and synergy that we have created.
PART A) HISTORY OF KINETIX Kinetix was established in 1991 under the name of Ziylan Pazarlama A.S. In 1994, they changed their names as Sporer A.S for achieving to continue their marketing in domestic market. Sporer A.S is producing Kinetix and Torex brand name sport shoes. And also they produce textile products as Kinetix. Kinetix is selling shoes,textile and accessorize for women, men, children. Now Kinetix is a well known brand and third most chosen sports shoes. Since 1997 Kinetix has been marketing and promoting boats. In 2005 they started to prepare textile collections. Kinetix has 850 selling point in country-wide. The head quarter in Bagcilar is serving with 70 personnel. BILAL USTA
2
VISION&MISSION
VISION With a view to improve our firm’s effectiveness and efficiency in national market, being Turkey’s reliable and prestigious enterprise in our area of specialisation. MISSION To be one of the best young/sports clothing firm of Turkey’s and its neighbours’.
QUALITY POLICY The firm is aim to grow in sports wear and to enter the overseas markets. The firm has the ISO 9001 quality ceritficate. Because of this the firm is decisive to continue to develop its organisation and try to be the market leader in domestic and overseas markets.
Brand Value & Components of Brand Identity Brand Value Reliablity
Components of Brand Identity Honesty
Young
Prestigious
Dynamic
Energic
Variety
Contender
Goer
Closeness
Humanistic
Innovative
Pioneering
Accessibility
Stylish
Global
Appropriate
CONCEPTS OF KINETIX BILAL USTA 3
1
WHAT IS INNOVATION?2 The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes or in services (Mckeown, 2008) Invention that gets out in to the world is innovation. In many fields, something new must be substantially different to be innovative, not an insignificant change, e.g., in the arts, economics, business and government policy. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy
H I 1 2
Benefited from Kinetix orientation report Benefited from wikipedia
ATHLETIC BILAL USTA
4
FAS ATH
Goals of Innovation3 Effective innovation management requires the implementation of a number of processes and the employ of a number of tools. At the outset it is important that the culture of the organization empowers employees and encourages them to submit their ideas. Most importantly management should adopt the appropriate innovation strategy to lead the innovation process and manage the innovation portfolio. The following summarizes the various objectives that management should aim for under the innovation management stage:
Effect a shift in the way the organization sees itself where innovation is recognized as the way of doing business
Deciding upon the innovation strategy that best fits the organization’s situation, and enable it attain its vision.
Creating a portfolio of innovation projects to translate competitive strategies and to manage risk across the whole organization.
Define a criteria for the selection and prioritization of projects within the portfolio to weed out less probable projects as soon as possible
Effect the necessary structural changes to arrange skills throughout the organization in competence centers, to enable the formation of the right team for the purposes of the innovation project.
Arrange current and potential future alliances in a portfolio that can be tapped when needed, and define when and how such alliances are to be made (governing conditions).
Foster an organizational culture that promotes innovation by allowing employees time to innovate and the implementation of their own ideas for improving job performance.
3
Benefited from http://www.ipmall.info
BILAL USTA
5
Develop and implement methods that enable tapping into the organization’s intellectual capital.
CHANGES IN INNOVATION4 The term changes in innovation is distinguished from technological development. And in this part you will see the changes in technology and this situation’s effects on changes in innovation. There are a lot of things have changed in technology for 20 years. So these changes have changed the innovation process. What has changed???5 In the past: In the past innovation assume that companies’ subject matter experts (within companies’ company) invent and design innovative new products to meet needs customers may not even realized they had. Then companies’ marketing and advertising departments make prospective customers aware of those needs, wrap a brand experience around companies’ innovative products, package and price those offerings… and bring them to market. Present customer-focused innovation: Communication channels are the means by which a source conveys a message to a receiver. Information may be exchanged through two fundamentally different, yet complementary, channels of communication. Awareness is more often obtained through the mass media, while uncertainty reduction that leads to acceptance mostly results from face-to-face communication. So this change effected innovation. In these years to flip the innovation process around and assume that customers have outcomes that they want to achieve. Because of they have deep knowledge about their own circumstances and contexts, and they are not happy about the way they have to do things today. They will innovate - with or without your help - to create better ways to do things or to design products and services that meet their specific needs. 4 5
Benefited from wikipedia Benefited from wordpress.com
BILAL USTA
6
There’s obviously a big difference in past and present innovation processes. But the impact to organizations who don’t understand that the game has changed is much larger. Just as the Consumer has begun to take control of media, they will also demand a starring role in cocreating your company’s products & services. This is an evolution that makes perfect sense. In past innovations, we didn’t really know what companies’ customers want - we may think we do, but at best we’re shooting in the dark, and hoping we hit something. From a marketing and sales standpoint, companies’ new products are “pushed” through the sales channel to the customer, who often has to be incentivized with discounts, rebates and other creative “carrots” to persuade them to buy. So these programs cut into gross margins and profits, and usually aren’t very effective. In contrast, if you really understand not only your customers’ needs, but the critical outcomes they want to achieve, you can then work shoulder-to-shoulder with your key customers to “co-create” products that meet those needs. There’s no need to “push” your offerings, because customers will gladly pay a premium for products and services that make their lives easier and more profitable. Higher margins and profits for the company.
Additional to past vs. present innovation process6 The companies were working only with smart people within the companies in the past. But they now need to work with smart people who is from inside and outside the companies. They might discover from researches and developments (R&D) to make profit, and also were developing it and ship it theirselves. If they discover it theirselves, they would get it to market first. But nowadays external R&D can create significant value; internal R&D is needed to claim some portion of that value. They don't have to originate the research to profit from it.
6
Benefited from wikipedia
BILAL USTA 7
The company that gets an innovation to market first would win. At present building a better business model is better than getting to market first. In previous years if a company created the most and the best ideas in the industry, they could win. İn recent years they don't have to originate the research to profit from it.In the past they were controlling their innovation process, so that their competitors didin’t profit from others’ ideas. But now the companies should profit from others' use of their innovation process, and they should buy others' intellectual property whenever it advances their own business model.
BILAL USTA
8
PART B) 1)R&D INVESTIGATIONS R&D Functions7 The R&D function is a strange function.In many organizations,the function means working primarily on developing and improving existing technology and products.In a few firms,it is defined working on advanced R&D,more akin to university projects.In almost no organization does the R&D function operate in accordance with its real objective: To help develop new things that drive profitable growth. For some reason R&D has become distanced from delivering value.The majority of R&D organizations do not talk to customers - they let marketing do that.They do not listen to market needs.They rarely even listen to the rest of the company.The prime culprit is senior management in R&D.They tend to be older,more set in their ways, and less willing to accept that the old model of R&D,one they had to learn through the trenches over the last twenty years,no longer functions. Nowadays,the R&D function is facing a significant change of role and major organizational transformations;as the innovation process becomes increasingly complex,so to does the remit of corporate R&D.In addition to generating knowledge within the firm,R&D is now about knowledge management,including the management of knowledge outside the firm.Research and develop is becoming 'Aquire and Develop' and 'Connect and Develop'. When we look thoroughly to the concept of R&D,we will be able to have some ideas about their way of thinking on the function of R&D. We made an interview with the firm Kinetix, a domestic sneakers and shoe manufacturing firm,and try to learn one or two things about R&D functioning and other
7
Benefited from http://innovationbbl.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
9
issues.So,as we go into the deep of R&D functioning,we can understand that they are putting this into two seperate categories:
Product R&D8 Since the world has come to a place,where technological developments are impossible not to be aware of and really hard to follow,Kinetix is also doing his share on this matter.According to their saying,the shoe industry is a complex one and many many people are depending on this industry.There are thousands of workers,who are participating in various kinds of working process on this huge business sector,so this is a big deal.That's why,Kinetix should always improve their way of working and developing new kinds of shoes and sneakers.To be able to do so,they're applying different methods like new computer programs,which optimizes the production process and saves time to them.They observe and interpret the trend through the whole world and try to gain information about the best suitable and effective way of producing shoes for people.But they say,it's not important only to be quick on production,it's important to create the quality for costumer also.
Service R&D: As you can guess,production is not the only thing that any kind of business is depend on.It's only the beginning to create value and quality for costumers.After an effective and successful manufacturing process comes a reliable and trustable delivery and service process.That's the second leg of the R&D functioning.So,according to Kinetix's managers words,it's an crucial way of gaining costumers attention to the brand,creating a desirable and need satisfying service process.To reach a success on that matter,they try to change their old habits of company structure the manager says.Because Kinetix is not a corporate firm,but a family firm,there are stable habits on various matters,which are really hard to 8
Benefited from http://www.eirma.org/documents/casimir/ward-essay.pdf
EMIR COLAK
10
change.But,Kinetix is on its way of breaking them.And they already have gone to some point the manager says.To be a little more spesific,they try to improve their information-function groundwork and their form of organizational structure.About improving their informationfunction groundwork,they use some high technological systems to provide the most efficient and effective service for costumers and they also hire educated staff to improve peoples way of thinking on that subject.Second,the form of organizational structure was a vertical structure before,where the workers are lined from the most important person to the least important one and the problem on that is losing time and energy on the way of creating good service for costumers.So they also made some crucial changes on the form of the company's organizational structure.
Scientific Freedom9 Scientific freedom,also known as freedom of scientific research and development means to develop,manufacture and market technology-based products that provide equal access to information and computing for those with vision impairments or learning disabilities. If we make a start from this explanation most of us can realize that scientific freedom is very much related with improving products quality and to learn and develop the ways of doing it.To be more understandable,it means to search every possible way for doing and creating what's better for the costumer.That's the general idea about it.But,there are some other issues related with scientific freedom also.For example:Time and Money.The scientific researches and investigations on products and their potentials can be very time and money consuming.It's an endless see.If you have the money,the power and the time to do these kinds of researches in your spesific business sector,then you can do anything with the help of science and techlonolgy.You can do and be the best for your costumers.So,as you can imagine,'till this point,we were talking about the powerful and big companies in whole 9
Benefited from http://www.freedomscientific.com/about/about.asp
EMIR COLAK
11
world.In shoe business it's not very different either.You know the big ones.Nike,Adidas,Puma etc...To take this aside,if we look closer the domestic ones like Kinetix they don't the same opportunities and power like the big companies.So,if Kinetix want to have a scientific freedom,they should wait a little more.Because,in todays world,money means almost everything.At least,it's what the manager of Kinetix tried to say to us.So,because they don't have the same power and they are facing limitations on scientific freedom,they don't have any freedom,they do researches and trying to accomplish some new ideas and innovations on their business only the level their economical power lets them to do it. •
Analyzing the Marketing/R&D and the Quality Assurance/R&D Interface
Integrating marketing and R&D inputs is one of the fundamental challenges in managing innovation. Marketing's most important contribution is ‘not getting it wrong’ rather than ‘getting it right,’ in setting minimum criteria in project evaluations rather than definite targets, and in refocusing the attention of R&D staff through the very process of providing input.10 Quality assurance covers all activities from design, development, production, installation, servicing, documentation, verification and validation. This introduced the rules: "fit for purpose" and "do it right the first time". It includes the regulation of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components; services related to production; and management, production, and inspection processes. One of the most widely used paradigms for QA management is the PDCA (Plan-DoCheck-Act) approach.11
10 11
Benefited from http://www.sciencedirect.com Benefited from http://wikipedia.org
SANIYE TEKBASLI 12
Kinetix doesn’t have their own production factory. And also they don’t believe that the technology for producing sport shoes is enough in turkey. Because of this reason, they are making their production in China and some other middle - east countries. The companies name were confidential. But the product manager told us they have some strategic alliances in R&D, product development and IT.
2) OCTOPUS STRATEGY INVESTIGATION Strategic Alliances12 A Strategic Alliance is a formal relationship formed between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need while remaining independent organizations.
Stages of Alliance Formation A typical strategic alliance formation process involves these steps: Strategy Development:Strategy development involves studying the alliance’s feasibility,objectives and rationale,focusing on the major issues and challenges and development of resource strategies for production,technology and people.It requires aligning alliance objectives with the overall corporate strategy. Partner Assessment:Partner assessment involves analyzing a potential partner’s strengths and weaknesses,creating strategies for accommodating all partners’ management styles,preparing appropriate partner selection criteria,understanding a partner’s motives for joining the alliance and addressing resource capability gaps that may exist for a partner. EMIR COLAK 12
Benefited from http://wikipedia.org
13
Contract Negotiation: Contract negotiations involves determining whether all parties have realistic objectives,forming high calibre negotiating teams,defining each partner’s contributions and rewards as well as protect any proprietary information,addressing termination clauses,penalties for poor performance,and highlighting the degree to which arbitration procedures are clearly stated and understood. Alliance Operation:Alliance operations involves addressing senior management’s commitment,finding the calibre of resources devoted to the alliance,linking of budgets and resources with strategic priorities,measuring and rewarding alliance performance, and assessing the performance and results of the alliance. Alliance Termination:Alliance termination involves winding down the alliance,for instance when its objectives have been met or cannot be met or when a partner adjusts priorities or re-allocated resources elsewhere.
Reasons for entering a strategic alliance There can be various kinds of reasons of companies to feel needy for a strategic alliance process.First of all,if two or more companies accomplish a successful strategic alliance relationship,they will have access to eachothers resources like products,production methods,manufacturing
capacity,distribution
channel,knowledge,expertise,intellectual
property etc...So they will have one or two clues about their way of thinking and doing things on that particular business sector.If a company comes short on one matter(like using an highcost material on its products),the other one is there to provide any source of help to them.On our project of Kinetix,it's the exact situation.The manager of Kinetix gives an example about how they are not competent and strong enough to use leather on producing sneakers for their costumers.And therefore,is the chinese alliance of them is helping them to get through that problem by manufacturing sneakers using leather on its raw material.As you can see,they are EMIR and COLAK trading ideas and opportunities with eachother it's a better way to seize todays business 14
market and use the existing potential in their veins.Since creating an alliance gives them a cooperative and colloborative structure,they are much stronger than the seperate individual companies,which compete with them.Synergy always beats the individual effort in the business world.And one another thing:with the technology transfer,like having access to eachothers knowledge and expertise,they are able to cope with the economical risks and high expenses.
Strategic alliances of the firm Like the explanation above,Kinetix gives an critical amount of credit to strategic alliance issue.So,therefore,they have some strategic alliances all around the world.The manager we interviewed didn't go too deep into details of names of alliances.But,the general idea and strategy behind these strategic alliance process is very clear.They try to minimize their external threads in their market and also want to gain the best result on profit and costumer loyality with it.So,they lack of competing with big firms in some spesific areas like producing,marketing,advertising etc... and therefore they use their strategic alliances opportunities and power to get the best possible outcome for their organizations.The production manager of Kinetix says:"If we lack of material or knowledge on some matter in production process,we ask our alliance's help and trade some ideas with eachother.It's the best way to get the desirable effect on costumer and on profit too." From our interview,we are able to understand that Kinetix has a chinese strategic alliance in production process and they help eachother to overcome the obstacles in both business markets.
How They benefit from the strategic alliances Like we said earlier,there are some important advantages of being in a strategic EMIR COLAK alliance relationship.These advantages include:
15
1)Allowing each partner to concentrate on activities that best match their capabilities: Every firm has a potential of doing their business and this potential is the tool to shape its way of thinking business and manufacturing products.So,every company should act and do business according to their limitations.It's not different in Kinetix either.According to managers words,they do their best to get their costumers attention and loyality and market share,surely by knowing their physical and economical potential and their capabilities.It gives them the chance to create the most possible value for their costumer,by letting the parts,they can't do because of their limitations(for some reason),to the alliance firm.This will save them both time and money in their own market and business sector. 2)Learning from partners & developing competences that may be more widely exploited elsewhere: Yes,that's an important subject for both parts of strategic alliance relationship.Learning is the key word for all business firms,no matter what they produce or service.To learn something gives a company an opportunity to improve and develop itself by all means.Not only a product feature is here we are talking about.This is much more than the production process of a product.This is the key issue that every company must pay attention to.Production development is one thing,but developing the way of thinking by general means is another.Learning creates a chance to develop and developing creates a chance to have some difference than others.Isn't that the general idea behind the concept of a brand?Creating difference.Feeling different.So,both our interviewee and we think that way.To create difference on costumers eyes,Kinetix or any other brand should explore the unlearned things on their area and develop their talents,point of view,competences.Only that way,they can compete with the global challange around the world.It's another reason their strategic alliance if there for them.
EMIR COLAK
16
3)Adequency and suitability of the resources & competencies of an organization for it to survive: Not a single resource is unlimited on this planet.Everything has an end point where it can't be used anymore,especially on the business sector.So,a manager of an organization should be very careful in spending the companies limited resources.Or the company will face a inadequency of the resources.The stategic alliance of the firm is helping the company to ease the pressure on its back,by giving more sources and competences to them.But these resources and competencies should also be suitable with the alliance's organizational goals and structure.Otherwise,its an empty gun for the strategic alliance and can't provide any help on surviving in the market.
Risks of strategic alliances network The benefits associated with strategic alliances are great,however strategic alliances are risky endeavors that require careful and methodological risk management through their life cycle(from partner selection to the partnership dissolution).In general terms,the firms and managers should manage three types of risks: Selection Risk: It can be defined as the risk,that firm has nonexistent,irrelevant or unreliable processes by which to select strategic partners. Monitoring Risk: It is the risk that result from the lack of appropriate financial or non-financial measures for evaluating the progress of the alliance.
EMIR COLAK
17
Failure Identification Risk: It means the risk that the firm will have nonexistent,irrelevant or unreliable processes by which to identify when a partnership should be terminated. While having this kinds of general risks on strategic alliance relationships,the companies face spesific alliance partnership risks also,resulting from the setting goals and objectives of the organization and developing strategies for these goals.So if we try to classify these objectives into four distinctive categories,we have 1)Strategic 2)Operations 3)Reporting 4)Compliance By distinguishing these objectives from one another,a firm can focus directly on the spesific risks that may prevent the company from achieving its objectives in each of these areas. The risks related with each part of the objectives are:
Strategic objectives related risks a)Innovation risk:It's the risk that strategic partners will not maintain adequate levels of innovation to support the firm's needs. b)Intellectual property risk:It's the risk that your strategic partner will make an inappropraite use of proprietary information in a manner that could negatively affect the firm. c)Product/service failure risk:It's the risk that fault or non-performing products or services from your strategic partners expose your company to sanctions from endcostumers. d)Misalignment of incentive risk:It's the risk that strategic partners have incentives to take actions that would negatively affect the firm. e)Partnering lock-in risk:It's the risk that the choice of a spesific strategic partner locks the firm into a relationship with negative consequences for the firm. EMIR COLAK
18
f)Outside scope risk:It's the risk that alliance will create products or services outside the scope of original agreement.
Operations objectives related risks: a)Input supply risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner is unable or unwilling to supply key commodities,raw materials,or component parts in a timely manner to meet the firm s regular demand patterns. b)Surge capacity risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner is unable or unwilling to supply key commodities,raw materials or component parts in a timely manner to meet unusually high,unexpected demand. c)Quality performance risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner is unable or unwilling to supply key commodities,raw materials or component parts according to the quality and reliability standards of the firm. d)Cost/price renegotiation risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner will take advantage of its position at a later date and seek unexpected increases in the price of key commodities,raw materials or components. e)Coordination risk:It's the risk that the firm and its strategic partner will fundamentally misunderstand one another's needs due to complexity or uncertainty associated with the task or difficulty of coordinating complex actions. f)Financial viability risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner will experience financial distress that limits its ability to meet the firm's consumption needs. g)Contribution valuation risk:It's the risk that the firm's non-monetary contribution to the partnership will be undervalued by the partner. h)Financial commitment risk:It's the risk that entering into a strategic partnership may expose the firm to credit risk.
EMIR COLAK
19
Reporting objectives related risks: a)Verification and evaluation risk:It's the risk that the firm will be unable to verify,monitor or evaluate its strategic partner's performance in an accurate or timely manner. b)Misalignment of incentive risk:It's the risk that strategic partners have incentives to take actions that would negatively affect the firm.
Compliance objectives related risks Compliance and regulatory risk:It's the risk that the strategic partner's failure to comply with customer requirements,firm policies or government laws and regulations may expose the firm or its employees to sanctions.
• Analyzing The Octopus Diagram Of The Firm Defines an interesting phenomenon termed the “Octopus Strategy” where multidivision companies from Japan, the United States and Europe are joining forces to create multiple strategic alliances. The end result of this strategy is that two divisions of the multidivision companies may have formed an alliance, while other divisions of the same organizations may be in fierce competition with one another. Develops a model of the working of strategic alliances based on the existing empirical evidence. Suggests some contributions that government, industry and education should make for the success of alliances.13
3)OTHER ISSUES • Limitations Of Innovation 13
Benefited from www.emeraldinsight.com
EMIR COLAK / SANIYE TEKBASLI
20
Organizational innovation involves the creation or alteration of business structures, practices, and models, and may therefore include process, marketing and business model innovation. Process innovation involves the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method. Product innovation involves the introduction of a new good or service that is new or substantially improved. This might include improvements in functional characteristics, technical abilities, ease of use, or any other dimension. Service innovation typically refers to service product innovation which might involve, compared to goods product innovation or process innovation, relatively less technological advance, being more interactive and information-intensive. Service innovation may also involve novelty in the way in which services are produced, or in delivery of other aspects of the service - including creative content in the case of entertainment and cultural services. Kinetix’s point of view to innovation is not only consist of product development, it also includes these four types of innovations. They take up all these as a whole. Together with implementing new technolojies to develope products, Kinetix is aimed to innovate faster, effective and efficient service. They want to turn innovations into financial gains and money. Because of this, Kinetix takes notice of organizational, process, product and service innovations. Kinetix’s hierarcy was vertical, but they thougth that this structure extends the decision making process. That’s why they vary their organization structure and now their hierarcy is horizontal.14
• Product Development Process
SANIYE TEKBASLI 14
Benefited from http://www.wikipedia.org
21
New product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process : one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering ; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share. While developing new product, Kinetix take into consideration technologic deevlopments and customer demands. They aimed to analyze and adopt both of them to new product. And also in this process, Kinetix make a point of the analyzes of competitors. They are aware of that the well known brands; such as Nike, Adidas, Puma; have the control of the market. These brands set fashion, new trends and styles. What Kinetix done is analyzing its competitors’ new products and try to produce like them with lower price. With this strategy Kinetix is on the way of being the best follower in Turkey.
•
15
How customer demand are integrated into innovation process
Kinetix give importance to customer demand in diverse processes such as; product quality, price, service, advertisements. They direct their products, services, product development and technoloji take into consideration these demands. Customers expect better service, better products and enhanced brand image from Kinetix. Kinetix focal point in production is order. Integrating customer demands into innovation process is achieved with order meetings which convenes twice a month. In the order meetings Kinetix presents their collections to customers and send for orders. These meetings convene in Kinetix’s showroom which is designed according to customer expectations
15
Benefited from http://www.wikipedia.org
SANIYE TEKBASLI 22
PART C) SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS With the 850 selling point in country-wide Kinetix is a very well-known brand. is selling shoes,textile and accessorize for women, men, children. But they have a limited budget for R&D. Because of this they are a little bit lack of innovate. But with their limited budget they are trying to do their best. They are not the market leader or trend setter. But they are very good at analyzing world-wide brands’ innovations and this feature provides them to produce with less cost and sell the products with lower price. So with this strategy they are becoming a good follower. Kinetix give importance to customer demand in diverse processes such as; product quality, price, service, advertisements. They direct their products, services, product development and technoloji take into consideration these demands. Customers expect better service, better products and enhanced brand image from Kinetix. Kinetix’s point of view to innovation is not only consist of product development, it also includes organizational, process, product and service innovations. Kinetix’s hierarchy was vertical, but they thought that this structure extends the decision making process. That’s why they vary their organization structure and now their hierarchy is horizontal. The companies which are not considered as corporates but considered as family firms have sone memorized and stable habits that are hard to break and change.But in todays business world most of these habits are obstacles on a companys way to achive its goals and outcomes.So because change is the only the thing not changes even the old and family companies like Kinetix should adapt to these continuous changes and developments in the industry.To be able to do that company should create solutions in more than one way and
23
must be open to new ideas and have the desire to make innovations.Only that way they can reach their desirable goals,customer attention and loyality and expected share in the market
REFERENCES
24
Kinetix orientation report (in the attachment in cd) http://www.wikipedia.org http://www.ezinearticles.com http://www.ipmall.info http://www.wordpress.com http://www.innovationbbl.blogspot.com http://www.eirma.org http://www.freedomscientific.com http://www.sciencedirect.com/science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation#Innovation_in_organizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_assurance
25