Our Innovative Side
In this post we take a deeper look at the organisation we are working on which is Chicken Licken.
Let us start off by looking at ‘Cultural Innovation’. Culture Innovation is the an environment of creative thinking. Here the thinking processes and ideas are not from the average mind, but yet from the mind of creative ones. A healthy culture of innovation has a shared set of values and mutually reinforcing beliefs about the importance of innovation as well as an integrated pattern of behaviour that supports research and innovation.A thriving culture of innovation can leverage the existing strengths of a given research and innovation ecosystem. Successful companies do the following steps.
1)See innovation as a competency: Innovation is a skill, not a gift. It can be learned by anyone and applied systematic.See innovation as a competency: Innovation is a skill, not a gift. It can be learned by anyone and applied systematic. See innovation as a competitive weapon: Innovative companies use innovation to differentiate themselves by: Conducting regular idea generation workshops within business units
2)Deploying innovation methods within planning and strategy initiatives
Innovating from the core competencies of the firm as the starting point
Using innovation methods as part of mergers and acquisitions to explore and analyse growth potential of the target
3) See innovation as a process: Innovative companies don't treat innovation as special, unique activity. They see it instead as an ongoing "stream of effort" along with quality, leadership, productivity, and other imperatives (Innovation in Practice, 2012).
Our brand (Chicken Licken), has explained to us in different ways about their Cultural Innovation. One of Chicken Lickens cultural innovations was creating their ‘old school adverts’. To this day people can still recall their adverts, because they are seen as catchy.
Innovation: : the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods
What are Drivers Of Innovation?
Nurturing Talent
Everyone has it in them to think creatively and bring ideas to the table, but there will always be those individuals who have a natural talent within their field. Based on the way they think, feel, perform tasks and absorb information they will be the ones who can lead innovation in their chosen area if their talent is nurtured.
Managing Creativity
When a team member comes up with an idea and brings it to their manager, the process of acknowledgement and reward is crucial to further innovation. If individuals and groups feel their ideas are valued and recognised, they are more likely to bring future ideas to the table. Having a set process in place for encouraging and managing creativity will help to keep it flowing and drive innovation.
Building Relationships
The relationship between colleagues as part of the team as well as between them and their managers can impact creativity. A strong working relationship can help to boost creativity and encourage an individual or team to be more forthcoming with their ideas.
Encouraging A Culture of Innovation
Rather than simply acknowledging innovation as and when it occurs on an ad hoc basis, organisations can drive innovation on a constant basis by creating a culture. This means highlighting what significant cultural changes need to be made in company to help innovation become a more regular and natural occurrence.
Social Media
These platforms make it possible for people anywhere in the world to instantly connect, share information, and create communities.
National Factors
Competitors can now come from anywhere in the world, no matter the product, market or industry. Chicken Licken main competitors are KFC and Hungry Lion.
Findings
The food processing industry can indeed rely on the principles of innovation management. However, there is clear room for improvement. Especially the potential of “open innovation” with suppliers and buyers to leverage innovation resources and capabilities is under-utilised. Interestingly, the uneven power distribution in the chain, especially the high pressure of buyers, acts as a strong driver for innovation. Seen in this light it is noteworthy that in most companies the communication from R&D to marketing needs further improvement to enhance customer orientation, one of the main drivers of innovation success.
Brand Awareness
Chicken Licken update their post at least 3times a week as well as respond to their fans almost instantly.
Chicken Licken advertising is focused and single-minded, addressing the core target market. Advertising objectives are three fold:
Reinforcing the Chicken Licken brand
Promoting trial and usage
Maintaining awareness
The Value Chain
the process or activities by which a company adds value to an article, including production, marketing, and the provision of after-sales service.The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organisations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organisation as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources - money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.— IfM, Cambridge[2]
Chicken Licken Value Chain
Input: Employees, customers, Restaurants, Produce, Company Image
Production: Cut and Clean the chicken
Logistics: Transporting the clean chickens to the franchises
Process: cook package the consumers meals
Distribute: Assemble foods for the customers meals
Consumption : Satisfied consumers, consumers go-to location
The Chicken Licken Innovation process
Step 1 is Strategic Thinking.
The process begins with the aim of creating a strategic advantage in the marketplace, so here is where we think about how innovation will add value to your strategic intentions, and we target the areas where innovation can help us get more opportunities when thinking strategically, as a child George Sombonos had a dream of one day owning a fast food restaurant and he worked strategically by becoming an apprentice to his father managing his roadhouse restaurant and learning the skills it takes to run a successful restaurant.
Step 2 is Portfolio Management & Metrics.
The most important fact of innovation management is failure. We are confident that we will succeed in the end, but along the way we will encounter many challenges, mistakes, and many attempts that will never come to fruition. So we manage portfolios aggressively to balance the unknown risks with the targeted rewards of success, and balancing the realities of learning, risking, failing in order to eventually succeed. George Sombonos believes in this greatly due to his own experience
“I went on the trip to America with mad enthusiasm,” says Sombonos. “I would buy trade journals to learn about the restaurant business, taste 12 hamburgers and 20 pieces of chicken every day until one day, in Texas, I tasted the best chicken ever. I invited the owner of the chicken outlet out for dinner that evening and asked him for the recipe. It took a lot of convincing, but the next morning he agreed to sell it to me for US$5 000. I didn’t have that kind of money and eventually I paid him my last $1 000 in traveler’s cheques for something I hadn’t even tested. It was a huge leap of faith. He could have sold me a salt and pepper mix.” (O’Brien, 2016)
Step 3 is Research
Research is very important because Through research we will master a wide range of unknowns, including new and emerging technologies, change in society, and customer values and by doing this we will expose new innovation opportunities. George had shown this greatly when he had went to America and researched different chicken and burgers and that research is what led chicken licken to their signature taste
Step 4 is Insight
Many people may see insight as the first step of innovation but we see it at the result of the above processes and activities and not at random .so the innovation process we have adopted doesn’t work on random ideas but the dedicated process of examination and development. And it doesn’t happen in the shower or anything along those lines because people and teams of people have been looking persistently.
Step 5 is product Development
This is where the brand tests out new products that could be a good seller and this deals with making prototypes and trying out new combos like with chicken licken sliders ,wings and soul fire sauce.
Step 6 is Selling
This is when the products are actually sold and profits are made. When the customer buys a product he is performing the last step of the process.
Who are the stakeholders of chicken licken?
Well the stakeholders of chicken licken are the customers, the employees, franchisee, shareholders and suppliers
Shareholders effect the innovation value chain in a financial sense as well the decision making sense which both go hand in hand and owners generally participate daily in the running of the business.
The customers of chicken licken impact innovation because they are the reason for the cash flow and they have needs that the brand must meet on an ongoing basis so the brand will have to innovate in accordance to the consumers’ needs
With employees being the ones making contact with customers they will be seen as the face of the brand and whatever they do will reflect on the brand being positive or negative so the experience the employee gives to the customer will determine if they become repeat buyers or not. with chicken licken being service based the training of the employee will be important.
What are the barriers and enablers of innovation?
Well the barriers of innovation are just certain elements, actions or situations that will restrict you from innovating to a certain extent and enablers are the opposite in which they assist you in the innovation process and assist you in innovating using different tools and techniques
The specific barriers that chicken licken face is that their name is based on chicken and that serves as a barrier for them in case they would have liked to try steak on the menu because consumers will be very wary of buying steak or any other meat for that matter at chicken licken.
An enabler for chicken licken would be the fact that it is a proudly south African product which will be endorsed to a certain extent to the consumers of SA and will enable the brand to be more innovative in the future because they do have the support of the home fans
