Disruptive Innovation And Strategic Leadership

Disruptive Innovation and Strategic Leadership

Essendon Food Solutions

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Introduction

Essendon Food Solutions is multinational company, which produced food ingredient which is used by several companies. It was established by Jonathan Jacob and Henry Shultz to introduce innovation in the industry and since then they have managed to introduce various production methods and products. Since its establishment, the company has used the disruptive strategy to expand its business and increase its market share. However, disruptive innovation is regarded as the process which a product is developed until its take root step by step until its get to the root of the market. It is utilized to create or transform new markets to become a Holy Grain for companies CITATION Sor12 \p 21 \l 1033 (Kaplan, 2012, p. 21). Disruptive innovation whether creating or responding to it, it creates a lot of uncertainty. Therefore, it requires strategic leadership to address its aspects including expectation and market challenges which emerge as result of its applications. In most cases, it changes the way the market functions. For the last decade, internet has been a significant disruptive innovation, which changes the way companies operate and the marketing aspect of all the industries. This report, therefore, present the analysis of Essendon Food Solutions based on disruptive innovation and strategic leadership. It presents strategies of the company based on internal, external, marketing perspective, strategic leadership and organizational of the company.

Internal perspective

The internal perspective is essential for success operational of businesses. It focuses on innovative activities, which are being undertaken by the company to improve its performance. The internal perspective includes financial strength, management strategies, workforce skills and experience, company’s revenue and profitability of the company as well. In the case of Essendon Food Solutions, the company has been generating a lot of revenue and expanding to other markets and establishing plants to increase its production rate. The internal perspective focuses on the core value process, which a business accomplishes to earn market advantage. Essendon Food Solutions has many employees who strategically perform their duties to drive the goals and objectives of the company CITATION Wil05 \p 23 \l 1033 (Fisher, 2005, p. 23). Majority of its employees are having bachelor degree from various fields of studies. It is pointed out that the company is run by a group of academics, very smart people,” therefore, this Essendon Food Solution advantage in terms of management experience. Essendon Food Solutions generates revenue of $1.6 billion annual and this is a key factor for its expansion to other markets. According to Patterson (2014) the growth of Essendon Food Solutions is due to human resource management strategy. The company trains all its workers to ensure that it has highly experienced and skilled staffs. The board of directors implement various research and development (R&D) activities at EnzymeTech in the last five years.

Essendon Food Solutions top managers are employees who were employed as junior and promoted to become senior managers. The company believes in internal growth of employees and therefore, it trains its employees and promotes them to senior position. This ensures that the company can be able to maintain its business culture. According to Reinke (2014) it ensures that the company develops competencies. Most of the company’s senior staffs have bachelor degree in Microbiology field. It is a standard or trend that the human resource would prefer individuals from the field of Microbiology when recruiting employees. Essendon Food Solutions has established customer care representative to deal with customer issues to improve the relationship between customers and the company. Some of the key competent is its high profitability, application of technology for the production of products, highly learned employees and well organized and trained customer support.

External perspective

The food and beverage industry has been growing for the last decades. There are several companies offering similar services to customers. The export market has been performing well in Australia and therefore, the products offered by the company are reviewed positively in the market. It is established that there are state of the art research and development (R&D) center in Sydney. The research center could be used by the company and other stakeholders to conduct studies on the market and the products offered to improve service provision. It is also established that the marketing managers are required to visit the R&D centers, which are located in China and Indonesia to learn more about the product and the trend in the global market for the benefit of the company. From the seminars and visiting of R&D centers, the marketing team is expected by the company to establish the best alternative strategy, which can give the company advantage in the market. It is also established that the market export is good. Though the company does not have expertise run around Asia, it is an Australia market and therefore, it understands the market trend in the region. The company has elaborate management trainee program, which is used to improve productivity of the company. Due to its management training program, the company is able to have a team of highly skilled and experience employees. This is one of the key factors, which has improved the performance of the company. It is noted that, over the last years, the number of employees have increased by almost 60% and this is clear indication of improved performance.

Marketing perspective

Essendon Food Solutions has developed its marketing team to reflect its mission and objective in the market. Since it focuses on health related issues, the marketing teams are of individuals with Degree in Microbiology. This is to ensure that the marketing and sales team of the company can be to provide detailed description of the products offered by the company. It is noted the marketing team works together with R&D centers in region to create links, which can be of beneficial to the company’s market and profit growth CITATION Mic154 \l 1033 (Richard, 2015). It is also pointed out that Essendon Emulsifiers has technical sales and marketing executives and therefore, it gives the company a higher competitive advantage because its employees can accurately perform their duties. Moreover, the company uses modern technology for the purpose of marketing of its products and services. It uses social media.

Technology perspective

Technology perspective is an important factor for successful growth of the company, the technology perspective focus on some of the activities, which are being undertaken to improve the product value in the market. For the last decade, Essendon Food Solutions has conducted studies and established products such as EnzymeTech, which is used to supply enzyme to different clients in the food industry. In additional, Essendon Food Solutions has developed Essendon Emulsifiers, which is being supplied to the customers through distribution. The company has also invested in research and development (R&D) centers, which are being used to improve the product value. This has made the company to increase its market share hence profitability.

Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership is a key factor for the provision of efficient business practice. The company has the board of directors, chief finance officer, and manager in charge of branches, senior managers and executives. The board of directors is decision maker of the company and therefore, the board is in charge of major decisions regarding the daily business operations. The company is utilizing two tie business management systems. It is obtained that the decision making process occurs at the executive level and at the board of directors. The company allows senior managers, executives to make decision regarding the business processing of the company. It is also established that almost 80% of senior employees, and executive joint the company has management trainee and promoted to the senior position in the company (Satriani, 2014). However, the company has also started to employee senior management from outside to improve the performance of the company. According to Kaplan (2012) hiring of management from outside adds value to the team and therefore, can introduce the change needed in the company. This will allow the company to have employees who can introduce new ideas, which is a key objective of the company. It is noted that the company is creating partnership with other firms for the successful implementation of various products in the market to ensure that it can increase its productivity and profitability of the company is increased.

Summary

Essendon Food Solutions performance in the industry has increased since it was established. It has increased its employees to over 800 since it was stared and revenue increased by 90% to $1.6 billion. It trains its management staffs before being given assignment to ensure that the delivery is efficient. Essendon Food Solutions ha research and development (R&D) center, which are used for innovation of several products which can fit the need of customers. It has developed Enzyme EnzymeTech for the production of enzyme and Essendon Emulsifiers for the export market.

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, M. 2016. Disruption from the Inside-Out: Innovation in the Restaurant Industry. Boston Hospital Review , 2-35.

Fisher, W. P. 2005. Food Service Management: A Case Study in Adaptation. Hospitality Review: , 12-38.

Kaplan, S. 2012. Leading disruptive innovation: Improving the practice of management . Ivy Business Journal , 2-15.

Patterson, M. 2014. disruptive innovation impact on Food Industry. Journal of Business and Hospitality management , 2-34.

Reinke, M. 2014. Preparing an effective case analysis. Journal of business management , 2-18.

Richard, M. 2015. Case Study: Essendon Food Solutions (EFS). Strategic leadership , 2-31.

Satriani, J. 2014. Internal Perspective Definition. Food service assistant Jobs in Essendon Fields , 2-31.