Transformational and Innovation Plan

Introduction

Globalization and toughening of the competition promoted the change of the traditional strategic paradigms. Owning to the fact that not only competitiveness but also a company’s profitability in the changeable world depends on its capability to the continuous updating, a transformational and innovative planning is of particular importance. Being the crucial elements of the general organizational strategy, it is urged to connect the priorities of the perspective development of a company with the level of its potential innovation to make a new quality of production and control the main instrument of the achievement of a company’s aims.

In the conditions of an economic crisis, the creation of an adequate control system becomes one of the defining factors of the acceleration of the innovative activity processes. At present, the solution of this task is complicated by the numerous hierarchies of the economic interests, considered in the course of development and implementation of administrative decisions. Nevertheless, still, there is an unclaimed potential of the transformational innovative planning which is so highly proved in the marketing systems of different degrees of complexity (McGuire, Palus, Pasmore, & Rhodes, 2015). The transformational and innovative planning represents an effective remedy of the organizational activity of any innovative organization, for example, the ZTE Corporation, in the conditions of extreme uncertainty of environment and the transition state of the world economy.

What Is the Transformational and Innovation Planning?

The need for correlation of the problems of strategic management with the implementation of the innovations, representing the fundamental transformations of their activity and expressed in the transition from the volume-focused production to the consumer-focused one, is the distinctive feature of the world innovative organizations in crisis conditions. Owing to this fact, it is possible to consider the transformational and innovation processes as the objects of strategic management.

Innovations are technical, organizational, economic and administrative changes in an organization. Different organizations possess various susceptibility to innovations. Their innovative potential significantly depends on the parameters of organizational structures of management, vocational structure, the industrial and production personnel, the external conditions of economic activity and other factors.

Innovations contradict, on the one hand, to the conservatism, directed at the preservation of the existing provision. On the other hand, they are aimed, within the strategy of changes, at the substantial increase of technical and economic efficiency of the organizational activity. Innovations compose the elementary components of a business, always inherent in the market economy. However, it is the combination of rationality and irrationality. Creativity serves as an innovation engine; it is the primary resource of business at a market economy. The innovative activity is badly connected with the strict regulation of works.

The innovative activity has a creative character. It is badly combined with a rigid regulation of works and centralization of decision-making, and it hardly fits into the formalized organizational structures of management. The innovative potential of organizations is, in many respects, predetermined by the variety and degree of production and technological unity of the production facilities. The more active role organizations play in the reproduction process, the higher their innovative potential is.

Transformation is one of the most ancient types of innovations, characterized by the technical breakthrough, changing the further course of the history (for example, the emergence of the Internet). A long term of innovation implementation (the Internet needed 30 years) is the disadvantage of this type of innovations. Transformation is not a trouble-free innovative stream, but it forms the base for the branch and market types (CEB, 2012, p. 4; Schroeder, 2013, p. 6).

Transformational innovations are in essence socio-technical service systems. The process of co-creating value propositions integrates three processes: the customer process – emotion, cognition, behavior; the supplier process: opportunities, planning, implementation; and the encounter process: communication, usage, service. (den Ouden, 2012, p. 63)

The success of such giants as eBay, Google, Amazon or ZTE can seem to be immediate. However, it is not true. A number of mistakes were made prior to the successful implementation of their projects. Thus, the ZTE Corporation, the leading international supplier of the technological, corporate and user decisions in the sphere of telecommunications for mobile Internet, has introduced the analytical assessments of the most popular directions in the technological branch all over the world and the transformational plan on the development of the innovative decisions. The former will allow telecommunication operators, clients of the corporate and government sectors, consumers and partners to benefit from innovative possibilities on the market. The ZTE Mobile Devices will concentrate on customer-oriented innovative solutions at the creation of products for buyers of smartphones, tablets, and portative devices. It will allow the company’s customers to have access to the latest technologies, using the personalized and productive applications and software (ZTE, 2015).

Thus, the characteristic feature of the transformational and innovative planning includes integrated design and process approach providing coordination of the opportunities of a definite organization and corporate interests. It includes not only the definition of a general course of the activity of the innovative organization, but also the development of measures directed at the innovative activity on a certain, evidence-based concept. The transformational and innovative planning assumes the development of the program of the innovative development and a technique of acceptance and implementation of the innovative decisions. It may also contain a set of the characteristics reflecting the priority of goals, providing the positive dynamics of development, timeliness of decisions and actions, reasonable forecasts of indicators of the advancing innovative development, and the analysis of the consequences of the current innovations (CEB, 2012, p. 7).

The Structure of Innovation

The peculiarities of the structure of innovations and transformations in ZTE are defined by the branch of their implementation. The structure of the company’s innovative planning includes:

• The content and viability of innovation;
• The goals of the innovative project, made on the basis of market researches and structuration of a task;
• The system of actions based on the put goals;
• A complex justification of the innovative project;
• The implementation of the innovative project;
• An expert review of the innovative project;
• The way of the implementation of the innovative project, and also the system of motivation.

The innovative planning consists of three main stages, namely primary (pre-investment and investment), innovative project implementation and completion of works. The pre-investment stage consists of the pre-investment researches on the basis of which the innovative project is planned. This phase includes: forecasting, consideration of the conditions for implementation of the initial idea, the development of the doctrine of the project; pre-design calculations on investments; selection and decision of location; ecological justifications and examinations. The investment stage includes the works at the compilation of documentation and implementation of the innovative project. The innovative project planning includes the creation of the plan of implementation of the innovative project; creation of schedules; working processes; monitoring and control; plan updating and payment of the performed works. The completion of works stage consists of balancing and commissioning; start-up the object; analysis of results; operation; repair and development of production; termination of the innovative project, etc.

The structurally-functional model of the transformational and innovative planning in ZTE can be presented as follows:

• Result (a conceptual aspect, the formation of the general purpose by the subject of management taking into account the forecast of changes in environment);
• Means (the technological aspect connected with planning and implementation by the object of processes in the operated subsystem);
• Conditions (resources, material, and time aspects of the realization of the general purpose);
• Process (the organizational and administrative aspect characterizing the strategy realization course) (ZTE, 2015).

The Innovational Technology

In the conditions of crisis, there is the quantum controlling methodology with the specifics of the definition of the purposes inherent in it and their practical realization. The given technology can be applied to the reflection of transformation of the innovative organization, in particular, development of the projects aimed at the improvement of business processes. The development of technology of the transformational innovative planning in ZTE starts with the goal-setting.

At the first technological stage, the purposes of transformation are defined, and the expected specific conditions are added to them. The short but exhaustive list of elements (or factors) is established. It includes not only knowledge-intensive production, but also significant factors of uncertainty and potential positive circumstances. Therefore, this technological stage is connected with the identification of the strategic factors of success, the definition of priority activities and key tasks, fulfillment of which provides success in a long-term perspective. The second technological stage includes the testing of hypotheses and identification of the factors having the most essential impact on the efficiency of activity of an economic unit, their systematization and development of the preliminary offers. Then, the analysis of the mechanism of functioning of an innovative organization is implemented (ZTE, 2015).

The Processes of Innovation

The development and realization of the processes of strategic transformation of the ZTE Corporation are based on goal-setting. In crisis conditions, the purposes of the economic activity are usually connected with the increase of the production efficiency. In the presence of multi-structural economy, the additional purposes caused by the nature of the necessary evolutionary transformations are of great importance. They should be considered when developing the whole strategy. In particular, the full transformation of an organization leads a goal-setting to the class of especially important tasks demanding a thorough attention (Schroeder, 2013, p. 8).

The meaning of identification of strategic factors of success consists of the procedure, along with the systematic data collection and processing, which forms the base for the innovative strategic management of the innovative organization. While collecting the information, it is important not only to eliminate the essential from the point of view of strategic planning, but also to reveal a number of the basic variables capable to influence the achievement of success in a long-term perspective and to provide it by a definite action in a decisive way. The identification of the strategic factors of success makes a special direction of the analytical researches and the considerable section of strategic planning for which the accounting of possible changes of environment is especially urgent (van Hove, 2014).

On the basis of the data of the carried-out analysis, there is a complex of strategic objectives. The purposes of the innovative planning are exposed to the specification and systematization in the form of a conceptual non-linear model, consisting of such measurements as time, project, life cycle, a functional subsystem, a management cycle and a process. They compose the basis for the creation of the process concept of strategic transformation of an innovative organization.

The model of strategic transformation of the innovative company implements the perspective methods of controlling by the process-focused way in the cycle “definition-measurement – development – analysis – improvement – control”:

• Definition – the formulation of parameters of values creation, which are supposed to be improved;
• Measurement – the identification of maximum ranges of the acceptability of the major parameters and the measurement system of deviations of these parameters;
• Development – design and the specification of product/process with the orientation to a client’s needs;
• Analysis – the analysis of development for the definition of the possibility of timely satisfaction of customers’ needs;
• Improvement – the introduction of the alternative options of the process suitable for the needs of internal and external clients and remain accepted for the measuring system;
• Control – ensuring the stability of improvements for the indicators of processes, development of the system of monitoring of the process indicators and control actions (van Hove, 2014).

The disorganized innovative environment does not provide the timely response to the operating influence of a traditional character. The organizing impulse in such an environment loses the focus, without achieving the objectives. It generates the need to change the nature of the organizational influence; it has to be expressed as a multi-vector administrative process of the quantum type not only at the macroeconomic level, but also at the level of a definite company. Such an impact on the internal processes of functioning and development of the innovative enterprise has a number of essential features. The most important among them are:

• The dynamic sliding forecasting and adaptive planning by means of which the subject of management seeks to benefit in crisis situations;
• The refusal of the hierarchical organizational models and transition to the flat organizational structures emphasizing the principle of the distributed management;
• The transformational management, characterized by the implementation of innovations with the use of creative and intuitive ways of development and decision-making, and also possibilities of artificial intelligence, including the algorithmic methods of modeling of the knowledge-intensive productions;
• The combination of transformation and stability achieved using the asymmetry of impact on various innovative processes of the microeconomic plan (den Ouden, 2012; Schroeder, 2013, p. 8).

The Implementation of the Innovation Strategies in the ZTE Corporation

The ZTE Corporation introduces the transformational and innovative projects in telecommunications, corporate calculations and consumer devices for clients to adapt to the realities of an era of smart electronics and continuous connection to a network within the M-ICT strategy. According to this innovative planning, ZTE introduces the advanced technologies in the telecommunication networks, mobile devices, and corporate IT decisions. The transformations, applied in the company, will help its customers to be guided safely in the world with the escalating convergence of technologies. Being inspired by the key values “Cool, Eco-friendly, Open” (CGO), the company keeps a strong commitment to the creation of the innovative and powerful integrated solutions directed at the obtaining benefit by clients (ZTE, 2015, p.3).

Conclusion

Taking everything into account, the transformation and innovative planning in the companies like the ZTE Corporation represents a complex of the projects of the evolutionary transformations within the organization of both structural and functional types. The transformations of the structural type affect the investment projects and organizational projects of the integration character. The transformational and innovative planning implemented by the ZTE Company included the complex of projects, consisting of the detailed plans of action on the perspective activities with the instructions of executives suitable for the assessment of achieved goals. Each project entering the system of the innovative transformations is focused on the realization of a certain strategy: financial, production, marketing, organizational, personnel, and administrative. Lastly, the methods and means of the innovative strategic management, which allow to realize the potential of the so-called strong/weak signals arising in the situations when it is difficult to predict the succession of events, are considered to be the most productive tools with a high degree of instability and volatility of the probabilistic processes in economic life.

Related Free Management Essays