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Corporate Creativity

Individual Assignment 1

Prepared for:

Professor Gilbert Tan

Prepared by: Denise Tan Su-Wen

How the 5 dimensions of creativity allow IKEA to be the world’s largest home furnishing retailer

To build on this idea, Kamprad focused on offering to the masses a wide range of home furnishings with good design and low prices. Also, operating hours were set from 10AM to 10PM to accommodate the working schedules of his target demographic — young, working couples.

The fluency of Kamprad’s ideas was further exemplified in IKEA’s basic practices. (1) The implementation of a self-service concept was facilitated by a wide distribution of informative catalogs and explanatory tickets on display merchandise, which provided consumers with a wealth of information at a glance. (2) To save space, knock-down kits allowed all stock to be kept in warehouses in flat-pack boxes. (3) Kamprad also brought the cash-and-carry concept to furniture retailing, through the DIY furniture and the development of suburban stores with large parking lots.

Kamprad saw potential in cheap furniture retailing, something that was not considered due to high costs in the 1940s. But IKEA’s inception was not easy. His business of furniture retailing began as a mail order business, which came under fire from traditional furniture retailers due to Kamprad’s unbeatably low furniture prices, where even manufacturing cartels were told not to sell to IKEA.

However, Kamprad showcased great originality in this respect. He showed that he could figure out a unique way around challenges and beat the forces of competition by buying a few independent Swedish furniture manufacturers and establishing new sources in Poland, which further enabled him to drive down his costs.

Kamprad demonstrated flexibility in thought in generating concepts that further reinforced IKEA’s reputation as a non-traditional furniture retailer.

In shopping, Kamprad employed the classic IKEA traffic flow, which takes customers though the different rooms of a typical house, displaying the furniture in room-like settings to allow customers to better visualise the furniture in these display areas.

Even in dining, sensing customers’ difficulty in weaving through the crowd while balancing trays of food led IKEA to develop a specially designed trolley to allow customers to wheel their food to their tables easily.

Kamprad also realised that parents would sometimes have to bring their children along while shopping, and came up with Smaland, a supervised play area for children featuring a large ball-filled pit, so parents could shop leisurely while their children were being taken care of. He also understood the impact of automobiles on shopping habits and provided large parking spaces in all IKEA outlets.

No doubt, creativity and imagination drove the process of IKEA’s conceptualisation. It took imagination for Kamprad to come up with a business model so different from the traditional furniture retailing concept, and one which ensured that it met consumers’ needs. With great imagination and foresight, he managed to turn furniture shopping from a chore to an enjoyable experience for the entire family.

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FLUENCY OF IDEAS

PROBLEM SENSITIVITY

FLEXIBILITY OF THOUGHTS

ORIGINALITY

IMAGINATION

Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA

IKEA came about as a result of Kamprad’s demonstration of problem sensitivity.

Between 1935 and 1946, furniture prices rose 41%. At that time, the furniture retailing market was also largely fragmented, consisting of small manufacturers and distributors catering to local market demands. To Ingvar Kamprad, the market had a disproportionately large amount of resources satisfying only a small demand, and this posed a social problem and a business opportunity.

The prob lem? Expens i ve f u rn i tu re , inconvenient transportation of purchased goods, inaccessibility and the fact that shopping was usually done by the older generation. He saw the need for cheap furniture by younger consumers: couples beginning married life who wanted to furnish their first homes with quality and stylish furniture at affordable prices.

Corporate Creativity Individual Assignment 1 SCREAM

Model

Substitute•

Plastic casing of computers

replaced w

ith alum

inium

and scratch- and !ngerprint-resistant glass for a sleeker appearance

•Substitute

keyboard for

multi-touch display

Rearrange/Reverse •

Rearranged layout of conventional laptops to allow

screen to be both horizontal

and vertical

due to

accelerometer

•N

egative: Non-rem

ovable battery Positive: Easily charged and long battery life

Employing SCREAM

to determine the idea generation process of the iPad

Combine

•Com

bination of features of video view

ing, camera,

TV, Internet and more.

•W

i-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G

integrated to enable web

sur!ng, like

a regular

computer

Eliminate

•Elim

inating bulkiness, iPad was designed for

ease of transportability, easily !tting into a handbag or backpack•

Eliminated the physical keyboard, and replaced

with

one central hom

e button

and touch-

screen functions•

No CD

and optical drive, USB port

•Elim

inate full operating system (O

S) used in com

puters like Window

s and Mac, replaced

with an O

S based on the iPhone•

Reduced weight of iPad m

akes it lighter and thinner than its counterparts

Adapt•

Resembles a laptop, com

puter, eReader, personal digital assistant (PD

A) •

iPad norm

ally used

to read

books, check m

ail, watch videos and m

ore but it can be used in various sectors like the arm

y and in hospitals, to view m

edical records, x-rays and test results•

Other

unconventional uses

include using it as a D

J turntable, a car stereo console, as a m

enu for restaurants and even as a chopping board (the screen is scratch resistant)!

Magnify

•Addition of a front cam

era, to complem

ent the back cam

era•

Incorporated a larger screen•

Extra features like GPS and com

pass, game

playing and location function•

Longer battery life of 10 hours compared to

5 hours for conventional laptops•

Added colour display, compared to black-

and-white fram

ework of eReaders

•M

ulti-tasking function•

Use of hi-res, LED

-backlit screen for sharper and richer view

ing

Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil redefined the circus industry by changing the way ‘circus’ was perceived. A clear-cut case study for the Blue Ocean strategy, Cirque ventured into a market no one else had gone, or even considered.

While traditional circus was based on freak shows, star performers, clowns and animals performing entertaining acts in plastic tents known as “The Big Top”, Cirque du Soleil did otherwise. Animal acts were eliminated and creative forces such art forms from around the world, imaginary worlds, dance, daringness, dexterity, grace, acrobatic performances and acting took over as the key characteristics that defined and set them apart. Cirque traded the dusty floors and childish acts of traditional circus for upscale theatres and premium tickets for quality shows. In essence, they created an entirely new circus and entertainment experience for everyone.

Essence

The core ideas of a circus are fun, entertainment, humour, thrill and danger.

Cirque brought these ideas to a whole new level by amplifying and implementing them as the essence of their performances, which can be seen in the themes and storylines for different shows and increased performer-audience interaction and engagement.

ElaborativeAt Cirque, artists are provided with their own space and a creative environment where they can share their ideas freely and are also given opportunities to grow professionally and personally. With an open and inviting atmosphere, the work place functions more like a home-away-from-home and acts like a playground for the artists.

Creative minds, experts on various domains, craftsmen and performers get to work together in Cirque’s International Head Office in Montreal (which aims to be an international laboratory of creativity), to come up with creative projects for the company.

Employees’ potential is also nurtured through the provision of Cirque’s Innovation Bursary that encourages the creative endeavours of employees.

Ex"t

entia

l

Cirque du Soleil made use of their expertise in the circus entertainment industry to venture into related educational materials and tools, in response to widespread interest and to address the needs of their collaborators.

These training materials were developed for trainers, community workers, circus instructors and organisations hosting social circus initiatives, in support and promotion of the development of social circus. This initiative allows all organisations to reap profit from the wealth of expertise initiated by Cirque and its numerous partners.

Entrepreneu#al

EmpowermentConsumers, Business Pa%ners, Community

Consumers“The use of real words blocks the possibility of

imagination.” — Pierre Parisien, Cirque veteran and artistic director for Alegria

Cirque du Soleil empowers consumers to use their imagination, with all shows centred on two core elements: a unique theme and a unique soundtrack.

Theme: A delicate balance lies in determining the show’s theme, which has to be able to tie all the show’s acts together but refrain from adding up to a narrative. The team at Cirque endeavours to present open-ended themes, thereby avoiding straight narratives and allowing the audience to come up with their own interpretations of the shows.

Soundtrack: The theme’s soundtrack also plays a role in empowering audiences in this respect. All shows feature music with “phonetic sentence strings”, rather than actual words, as the team believes that their signature lack of language gives the audience the freedom to define their own story.

Business Pa%nersIn order to maintain its roots as a responsible citizen in the light of increasing partnerships and changing realities, Cirque added a new clause regarding social responsibility in its partnership agreements, encompassing social issues such as environmental protection, cultural action in the community, employee relations and working conditions.

CommunityCirque du Monde is a social circus programme set up in 1995 by Cirque du Soleil and Jeunesse du Monde, targeting at-risk youth by combining circus techniques with educational social intervention in a bid to help these young people. Cirque du Monde is offered to organisations dealing with this cause, with the aim of helping these youths regain their self-confidence, realise their strengths and discover their hidden talents.

ExpressiveIn explaining to the public the rationale for Cirque du Monde, the Cirque du Soleil website expressly states:

“[Cirque du Monde] wants to offer young participants, be they from Canada, Brazil, Mongolia or elsewhere, a springboard toward a new stage in their lives.”

Assessing the Creativity Management practices in a large and creative organisation like Cirque du Soleil