Analyzing Sustainability Opportunities and Impact on Elecdyne’s Innovation and Production

Part 1

Task 13

Sustainability and potential impact of related issues on company’s innovation, production and /or logistics function

1. Analyze sustainability over next 10 years

In analyzing Elecdyne for the next ten years for the sustainability based opportunities, there are some techniques that should be applied. The relevant techniques should include the Group Trend Maps. The opportunities that are sustainability based, that focuses on the sustainability of the environment are likely to focus around the following:

1. Production efficiency opportunities: for instance using fewer resources to make same product, including the opportunities for recycling, renewable energy and alternative materials. This implies making a product from raw material that can be renewed instead of the oil based products. The production based are on the supply side
2. Production innovation opportunities: for instance redesigning a product to do in a different way the same job but using fewer resources, For example i-pad verses computer, net books verses laptops. Similarly to perform multiple things or more efficient on energy use. For example, the cell phones act as computers, cameras, combined fax or scanner or printer as well, or it is also powered in differed ways, for example the watches that are solar powered. Besides, overlapping with the production efficiency is suing other different materials that are more eco-friendly or lighter, or maybe has uniformity for instance one charger t5hat can charge many laptops ,mobile phones, or in a way that is different for example CD players verses MP3s (Seliger 2007).
3. There need to produce when removing the elements together, for example when removing the packages, replacing the warrantees and instructions with downloads. Most of the above mentioned factors will have the global appeal. However, there may be specific ideas of relevance to a particular country. For instance, the devices that are powered by solar have more appeal to countries that has a lot of sun, and the sustainability issue will have cultural dimension that will affect the patterns of demand.

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Evaluate potential impact on these on company’s health care sector. The act of patenting medical innovation, production and/or logistics

1. Production: renewable energy needs may affect the location for instance the solar powered may consider moving to climates that are sunnier, the wind powered to the countries that are windier, or even near the seas and oceans for the wave power, to be located closer to the source of the renewable  raw material for the purpose of production.
2. Logistics: if there is change in the locations, or it becomes more spread out then it the logistics that will facilitate this
3. Innovation: the centers for research and development may need to take advantage of the specialized clusters in specific areas. For example material design, renewable power devices and miniaturization
4. There may need be for alteration of the marketing to sell the products in ways that are different, for instance in terms of its friendliness to the ecosystem, or to a client basis that is different using different media with different structures for pricing (Eweje & Perry 2011).

Task 15

Using relevant framework, identify the economic, social and /or environmental aspect of the issues chosen, what objectives/strategies an internationalized company might therefore set and how it would measure success in meeting these objectives/of strategies

1. Discuss what problems company might face

The fact that there exists more than one issue indicates that companies may have many goals. By illustrating that there are environmental, social and economic aspects shows that companies may have goals of different types, in addition to the one of pure economic theory of maximization of profits. This is true because if a company focuses on the economic goals, then market share and the growth of the sales may be additional goals for the company. These goals may not be reinforcing mutually and could work against each other. This requires some way of prioritizing them, assessing them and making a choice between them (Savitz & Weber 2006). Because there exists different goal types also shows that companies have groups of stakeholders that will be answerable to as well as the traditional economic theory that is based on one shareholder. Employees, suppliers, customers and governments among others are all additional groups of shareholders. Where the firm is engaged in the globalised industry in terms of consumption and production, as a company like Elecdyne in the industry of electronics, then the issues get multiplied. Therefore, there will be a range of variables with a developing need. These are variables that in some way can be compared, for instance:

1. Economic variables-market in terms of sales growth and market share, and finance in terms of profit
2. Social variables-stakeholders in terms of retention rates, employee satisfaction, customers in terms of customer satisfaction, learning or development in terms of training, skills and education programs
3. Environmental variables-the internal processes in terms of energy generation and use, operations in terms of energy use and recycling (Savitz & Weber 2006).

1. Use balanced scorecard approach for making decisions

Balanced scorecard

From the balanced scorecard, gaining short term profit when recycling and using renewable energy is not possible because of the initial investments. However, the long term profits of up to 10% will be realized. Return on investments of up to 15 % will also be realized. Having ethical business and recycling wastages will also improve the brand image of Elycdyne Company. Customer satisfaction will be high and the company will be in good terms with the government. However, it will have negative impact on shareholder since their investments and dividends will be used, while employers and supplies will have no impact. Ethical business will attract more suppliers to the company. Similarly, recycling and using renewable energy reduce carbon footprints significantly and increases innovation in the company.

 Part 2

Task 16

Evaluate the potential over next 20 years for the Agri food industry for Elecdyne with new materials and new markets

An estimate of 5.9% of the world GDP is represented by agriculture and food sector. The industry also offers worldwide employment of around 35%. Over the last years, ICT technologies have been used in the agricultural and food sector. This has led to increase in food production and delivery of the end products to the final consumers (Sekar 2006). However, there are significantchallengesthattheagriculturalandfoodsectorsexperience globally that undermine their key objectives. The corporation between electronic industries and agricultural and food sectors is a symbiotic relationship. Agricultural and food sector needs electronic technologies to soften their operations in productivity and supply. On the other hand, the electronic industries benefits by expanding their products marketing efficiency.

Compounding on the challenges faced by the agricultural and food industry, Elecdyne should focus on increasing of consumer concerns over food safety and reliability. The agri-food sectors can use electronic devices such as televisions and CDs produced by Elecdyne electronics to raise awareness over food concerns and safety. Ideally, information is the most powerful weapon and the core of raising awareness in the whole world. If it has an influential role in making the consumers updated on the food and agricultural security. Accelerating information to the customers through electronic devices is a key tool in solving the agricultural and food impediments. Therefore, Elecdyne electronics should capitalize on this area to assist the industry improve on the sales of their products.

Additionally, Elecdyne can also focus on food and agricultural supply chain to build on their marketing strategies. The electronic devices can be used to reach consumers and inform them on the delivery channels. This is because the agri-food firms must do marketing for their products. The agri-food industry can use the electronic devices such as televisions to conduct several marketing duties. For example, to inform the customer on the prices of the products, accessing the agricultural and food information, assessing of markets both nationally and internationally and increasing the production efficiency among others.

Elecdyne should focus on producing electronic products such as CCTV systems for security and monitor of livestock, weather proof entertainment systems, animal tracking devices, developing alternative environmentally friendly sources of energies like solar power and biodegradable electronics.

To achieve these innovative advancements, Elecdyne must have the support of various stakeholders. These include the employees, consumers, government and suppliers. The company needs the corporation and social responsibility of the stakeholders to implement the strategies. Therefore, Elecdyne should conduct massive awareness campaigns to educate business stakeholders on importance benefits of the innovations. Furthermore, they should establish a strong link with the CRS and aim at sustaining the stakeholders for their support.

New electronic product (Task 20)
For new products (from1 to 4) analyze how Electronics Company may choose which to focus research and development on, or use this to decide which product you would focus on

When considering identifying new product to an industry, there are several methods that can be used.

1. The financial methods: this is analyzing the return on investment the new product will give the company. It incorporate the creation costs and the expected profits and the duration it will take to regain the investment the company made
2. Scoring method: in this method, a company should look at different aspects of the new product and scoring them against each other to understand which product has the outcome that is mostly desirable
3. Go kill or checklist method: this where the company set out a criteria and ticks and ticks either YES or NO to whether the new product meet the criteria. If the YES tall exceeds, then the company promotes the product. However, if NO exceeds then the company drops the product
4. Bucket method: this is the method where different sections of the company all have set budgets. For instance, if Elecdyne desires a product that is innovative and sustainable, then the research and development team would be allocated a higher budget for product development compared to other sections that creates normal products
5. Bubble diagram: this method is made up of two lines forming a graph. Low to high profits, and the potential rate of success. The products are then entered into the graph by drawing the bubbles. The bigger the bubble, the more resources needed to create the product. There are four categories in which the product are categorized:

• Pearl- these products are very popular and are high in profits leading to high rate of success
• Oyster-not popular as the pearl but are high in profits
• Bread and butter– very popular but low in profits hence high rate of success
• White elephants– these products are not popular and are low in popularity therefore they are very unsuccessful

Key

1. TV with open source software
2. Tablet device with software
3. Existing Wi-Fi
4. Mobile Apps
5. TV with own specific software
6. Existing TV
7. Existing DVD
8. Software for other computers
9. Existing CD player
10. Existing DVD player

Form the diagram above; the products that fall under pearl category are many. However, because Elecdyne is just a small company, they cannot afford spending a great percentage of their investments because of their limited resources. Therefore, the product recommended would be TV with open source software, Tablet device with software, Mobile Apps and TV with own specific software. The devices that are portable would be ideal for Elcdyne because it is close to the products they are already producing. Thus, basic knowledge and infrastructure is already established. This also implies that the efforts for sustainability can continue and move across for the previous products because of the similar materials and supplies that will be used. Hopefully, these would be popular and produce high profits because they are widely used because of the available potential market.

Balance score card. (-4 to 4)

 
 
References

Biazzo, S., & Garengo, P. (2012). Performance measurement with the balanced scorecard a practical approach to implementation within SMEs. Berlin, Springer. Accessed from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24761-3.
Eweje, G., & Perry, M. (2011). Business and sustainability concepts, strategies and changes. Bingley, UK, Emerald Group.
http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=372834.
Savitz, A. W., & Weber, K. (2006). The triple bottom line how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social, and environmental success-and how you can too. San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass.
Sekar, H. (2006). Globalisation of service activities: opportunities and challenges for India. India Quarterly : A Journal of International Affairs. 62, 1-22.
Seliger, G. (2007). Sustainability in manufacturing recovery of resources in product and material cycles. Berlin, Springer. Accessed from

Herman Bailey

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