This one-day workshop is designed for organizations to drive innovative ideas through multifunctional collaboration. It focuses on the “Ideation” process through a fast-paced, hands-on, minds-on innovation challenge. The Ideation provides powerful and practical tools for thinking creatively and critically, solving complex, open-ended challenges and problems, and managing changes that will become a way of life.
At the end of the workshop, the participants will:
Gain insights of effective Ideation process and tools;
Create fresh new ideas and put them to work immediately;
Learn to work effectively in a multifunctional team;
Acquire creative thinking skills that can be used in your life.
Below video gives you an overview of the engaged and interactive Ideation workshop through Innovation Challenge.
Video: Innovation Challenge – An Ideation Workshop
My belated blog about the Innovation Challenge in last October! I have wrote an article Innovation Challenge Engages Students at a Commuter School to discuss how I organized the workshop to enhance multidisciplinary collaboration on campus. Finally, the official video is out!
Today, I had the first time experience to go live on the air as a radio talk guest! At our campus radio station Ram Nation Radio, we got to discuss the significance for students to participate New York State Business Plan Competition (NYSBPC) and entrepreneurship activities. It was a truly fun experience. Watch and listen to our radiocast at RAM National Radio!
This is a paper from our action research course with Dr. Lars Mathiassen back in 2010! Mala Kaul, currently Assistant Professor at University of Nevada, Reno, and I conducted the class project together. We are glad it is accepted for publication at International Journal of Business Information Systems. We don’t see a lot of studies using action research as the research method because it is a challenging approach to meet the needs of both theoretical and managerial contribution. However, it is a great approach if we see ourselves as an engaged scholar to bridge the cap between the academic and practice. Regardless, it is great to see our class project turing into a journal paper!
Abstract
As a reflection of the strategic importance of buyer-supplier relationships in supply chains, information sharing and knowledge exchange have been found to positively impact coordination, transparency, and perception of trust between buyers and sellers. However, our knowledge about IT as an enabler in buyer-seller relationships is limited. Against this backdrop, we examine how a large retailer, BuildSmart, adapted and leveraged a portal to help listen to the voice of their suppliers. Through a collaborative action research project, we developed a semantic sense-and respond approach to design and implement mechanisms that allowed BuildSmart to continuously sense how suppliers experienced their portal and how to generally improve their supplier relationships. As a result, we present a conceptual model for managing IT-enabled buyer-supplier relationships and demonstrate how conceptual modeling can be combined with sense-and-respond thinking to support IT-enabled process management.
Keywords
Collaborative Action Research, Supplier Relationship Management, Sense and Respond, Supplier Portal, Conceptual Model, Buyer-Seller Relations, Semantic Approach
Recently, there have been a lot of discussion about China becoming the next innovation super power. A recent HBR blog “Get Ready for China’s Innovation Juggernaut” alerts the readers that China is making huge strides to transform themselves as an innovative nation. It uses examples that more than 100 million registered private enterprises in China; the Chinese firm Huawei was third among all companies in number of patents filed last year; and media conversation these days centers on when, not whether, China will produce a success story like Steve Jobs’. For the first time in 2009, four Chinese companies are listed in the 50 Most Innovative Companies ranking by Bloomberg Businessweek, while American companies on the list decreased from 35 in 2007 to 22 in 2009. All signs are pointing to the fact that China is going to become next innovation power house.
On the other hand, there are doubts existing about Chinese innovation capability. An earlier NPR report Plagiarism Plague Hinders China’s Scientific Ambition pointed out that 31 percent of papers with unreasonable copying and plagiarism. Blame lies in part with traditional Chinese culture, as many scientists believe, which values rote memorization and repetition and holds that copying a teacher’s work is a way of learning.
No one can deny the fact that Chinese government is pushing innovation with strong incentive policies. From WIPO data source, China is the only major country with increased Intellectual Property (IP) application in last two years when other countries experienced IP application decreasing because of financial crisis. We can argue that IP application only means quantity, not quality. However, we also see China has a dramatic increase in IP granted. Below graph illustrates Top 10 countries of IP granted according to WIPO data from 1995 to 2009.
Top 10 Countries with IP Granted (Source: WIPO)
Japan has been the leader of IP granted, followed by the United States. Korea surpassed Germany becoming the number third since 2004. However, China passed Korea in 2009 while Korea experiences a significant drop in IP granted since 2007. According to the NPR report, China is forecast to become the world’s leading innovator in 2011, overtaking the United States and Japan in number of patent filings.
There is no doubt that China is very good in enhancing current technology. However, the question lies whether China can create “disruptive” technologies or services, which can lead the market and build the brands, such as Apple, Facebook and twitter. Government policy motivates the number of IP application or grants, but perhaps majority of those innovation are incremental improvement and development, instead of breakthrough creations which can drive much more value for the business and the society.
Thus, come back to my question: will China become next innovation super power? To my knowledge, Chinese are still learning how to be more creative and more innovative. If China wants to become the most innovative nation, the government policy should drive a scientific culture which emphasizes quality, instead of quantity, with an innovative environment embracing patience, persistence and precision.
A green supply chain is like a mystery. The idea always conjures images of a higher cost and investment to the business. However, is that really the case? Will companies need to spend more to be green? How can green initiatives drive financial and social benefits? I hope my short article can answer these questions. In my last article, I discussed the approach to collect data in the supply chain to quantify carbon emissions. Once we can quantify and start measuring the carbon footprint of the company’s supply chain, we can find ways to reduce it and measure their improvement.
Before I start discussing the possible solutions, I would like also to express my opinion for the recent trend of using “green” as a reason to call for nationalization or deglobalization. The trend suggests that manufacturers should be moved back to the U.S. to shorten the supply chain distance thus reducing the carbon footprint. I agree that a short supply chain close to production or the end consumers can be beneficial in some cases, such as the JIT practice. However, according to IEA, International Energy Agency, international shipping accounts for approximately 2.7% of world CO2 emissions, which is small relative to the benefits brought by global trade. Hence it’s not the reason to prevent globalization and international trade. I’m a strong believer of “competitive advantage”, which is the way to promote global welfare and technological development. “Green” initiatives should focus on innovation and waste reduction, in either technology or process. “Green” shouldn’t be used for a political reason and incur more costs for the whole society. According to the North American Supply Chain Carbon & Sustainability report, moving production closer to home is 12% of all environmental initiatives. Practically, companies will be interested in the green initiatives only when they are able to achieve a lower financial cost and a better customer satisfaction at the same time. That is true that companies can develop products more environmentally friendly and some consumers are willing to pay a premium for the green contents, such as for a Toyota Prius. However, the majority of consumers are not ready to pay more for green, especially for commodities. Hence, to enhance a company’s competitiveness, the approaches to reduce the carbon footprint of the supply chain should also aim to drive cost efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Just like the total cost analysis for supply chain, there are many trade-off decisions to be made in green supply chain optimization, and the goal is to maximize carbon emissions reduction. I’d like to suggest the environmental initiatives from supply chain functions’ point of view, represented in the below matrix.
As we can see, many of those initiatives are day-to-day initiatives and process improvement activities to drive operational efficiency, increase recycling, reduce waste, and enhance communication and visibility in the supply chain. Hence, the outcome of the green initiatives not only improve operational effectiveness of balancing costs and service, but also reduce the carbon footprint from movements, spaces and materials in the supply chain. A “green” KPI or measurement enables companies to associate the positive financial results to the carbon footprint reduction. Once the mystery of “green” is discovered, the cost of green initiatives won’t become an implementation barrier and companies can benefit from quick financial and social return from those initiatives. As a result, the “green” strategy is not just a social responsibility. It becomes the “sustainable” and “desirable” strategy for any company.
