GT1FOM Shutterstock’s Experimental Innovation Online Tutoring

Shutterstock’s Experimental Innovation

Question 1: Benefits and drawbacks of Shutterstock’s culture

The contemporary business climate is changing rapidly, whereby new technologies, new media platforms and novel business models are emerging at an astonishing rate. The businesses who fail to shift the gear of current business practices to experiment with the new emerging method are likely to fall behind the competitors. The key survival tip in the age of rapidly changing business climate is to take risk of adopting and testing new ideas. Consumers are becoming more empowered and skeptical, which enforces the businesses to become visionary for exploring the new methods of undertaking a specific business practice. Moreover, creating a culture of experimentation, just like Shutterstock.

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It has been mentioned in research of Uribetxebarria, Garmendia and Elorza (2020) that the most obvious benefit of adopting the culture of experimentation is that products can be improved continuously and higher amount of revenue can be generated. A/B testing of Shutterstock is the way of killing the opinions of those who are senior or have highest power. For instance, if any senior provide any idea, then it might not be effective all the time. Thus, experimentation allows to test the idea, regardless of who has provided it. The link between actions and words is clarified and better decision making is supported.

Additionally, when all the employee receive an opportunity to get their ideas tested, they become more confident and generate greater sense of value for their work. The commitment of employees increases when each of their idea is exposed to daylight, than being killed on white board during presentations. The communication rapidly shifts from abstract value of the ideas and moves to testing and experimentation (Murillo and Kauttu, 2017). The lower-level employees feel more empowered and thus their motivation level increases to the highest reachable point. The culture of experimentation and say of lower level of employees is thus beneficial for supporting innovation capabilities and potential of Shutterstock.

On the other hand, having say of employees in strategic decision making also has some limitations.  For instance, the experimentation culture helps the organization to continually bring incremental improvements in its products, as done by Shutterstock, but the company might miss on any major and disruptive innovation opportunity. Additionally, testing mainly shows short run results which could be negative but in long run ideas are likely to be more beneficial. It can lead Shutterstock to miss on any viable strategic opportunity. Moreover, testing of each and every idea provided by employees is not viable option for Shutterstock. Not each employee has strategic understanding and waste of time and resources can be minimized by testing the ideas which have strong strategic standing. Finally, too much attention of employees on generation of new ideas can also cause performance issues, as they might lose their daily organizational responsibilities (LUO and HE, 2017). Therefore, the experimentation culture of Shutterstock is although beneficial for company, yet company needs to understand its associated risks for assuring that experimentation is practiced in effective manner.

Question 2: Risks expected for Shutterstock

Although current innovations at Shutterstock is well supported by executives’ initiative to increase say of employees in strategic thinking and decision making. Along with that it could bring some risks to the organization, which is needed to be addressed by the management.

Strategic Risk

The business might be exposed to strategic risk, which is associated with any failed strategic decision taken by the organization. Although testing is conducted rigorously by Shutterstock, it is notable that experimental innovation might sometimes show positive outcomes in short run that might not prove worthy in long run. This issue can be addressed by making reliance on many metrics. For instance, any chosen metrics might not tell the whole story and there is need to look at many metrics for viewing the real change (Cheng, Humphreys and Zhang, 2018). For instance, any one metric might shows that innovation idea is suitable for bringing positive change in organization. However, that might not be the clear picture of the story and implementation of such strategy might cause loss for business. Therefore, selection of alternative metrics and retesting of ideas prior to their implementation is needed to overcome any kind of strategic risk.

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Risk of losing performance efficiency

One of the risk that could be experienced by Shutterstock is associated with any resulting comprise between innovation and performance. For instance, executives have supported all employees to take part in innovation process and give their say in strategic thinking. Although it enhanced prospects of innovation, yet performance of the team could decline. This issue can be addressed by keeping the team small, such that instead of testing too many ideas, only few most relevant and feasible ones are tested. Additionally, management needs to play the role to ensure that any short term performance outcomes are not comprised in the urge of bringing long run market change and innovation (Bravo-Biosca, 2020).

Case Study 2 – Coles

Question 1: Structure of Coles followed by World War II

Followed by World War II, Coles has experienced rapid expansion and it has changed its organizational structure, with an aim of assuring that clear and effective focus is maintained on departments that are central to organizational operations. The key departments of Coles are logistics, warehousing, distribution, sales and marketing and finance.

The focus on these functional areas (departments of Coles) is maintained under the boarder of functional organizational structure. The functional structure of organization leads to division of organization into smaller and specialized functions, such as logistics, distribution, warehousing and sales and marketing among others (Chión, Charles and Morales, 2019). Through this structure, functions within organization become central to business operations and thus greater operational efficiency can be achieved. By following this structure, Coles was able to assure that specialized knowledge and skills of employees are grouped according to specific functions. The grouping of employees according to departments’ needs has enabled them to accomplish their roles in an effective manner.

Moreover, it is noted by the views of Dźwigoł (2017) that enhanced specialization can be achieved by making reliance on functional structure of organization. The employees performing their specific tasks become expert in that realm. The specialization allows to make sure that every function is performed in most effective way and thus overall business efficiency is enhanced. This aspect of functional structure was considered attractive by Coles and thus company has switched to this structure for complying with its expansion needs.

The activities of coordination, supervision and task allocation are considered central to functional structure of organization. However, it is considerable that if only vertical communication is maintained in this type of structure, than flexibility can be hindered. This can be the reason that prior to 1993, Coles was less flexible, but it was able to meet its operational needs in a highly effective manner.

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