In the modern world, the development of contemporary markets involves the application of creative and innovative approaches in business. The task of being competitive is the recipe for the success of every contemporary enterprise. The problem is that under the circumstances of a competitive market, a huge variety of companies offers similar services and products. The successful realization of these products is the question of survival for an enterprise.
In order to make its production popular, a company resorts to different means. Apart from the high quality of products or services, a company should be represented in an appropriate manner. Moreover, the success of any company to a high degree depends upon its management.
Now the complexness of management problems is increasing. For these problems solved, creative or innovative approaches are of great importance. In large and developed companies, there exist special departments that consist of creative workers, developers of new technologies, and designers.
In contemporary business, creative methods are necessary as managers everyday face substandard problems. Moreover, they have to adapt to different challenges. The use of original creative ideas and solutions in business is based on new technologies, new marketing ideas, and active usage of untraditional tools. As Gallo puts it, nowadays, companies try to sell no goods but dreams (Gallo 2010).
At the same time, strategic management, with its necessity of a vision of a future and the development of strategies for improvement of efficiency and effectiveness, is impossible without creative thinking. Evidence suggests that the process of elaboration of the companys strategy is a creative process (Lockwood & Walton 2008). Those enterprises, which used such an approach, were always successful.
Nowadays, these examples of companies creativity can be found everywhere. Different goods of different producers boggle imagination with their original design and advertisement. Even goods in an ordinary supermarket may serve as a visual demonstration of the creative approach.
For instance, the Heineken Company has represented a limited series of beers with original bottles performed in dark and grey colors. The marketing experts of the company believe that this drink will be popular among the youth.
One of the vivid examples of the creative approach in design is a bottle of wine, which can be transformed into two glasses. It is very convenient for people who like traveling.
Sometimes bottles with drinks are performed in the form of a product from which it is made. For instance, a bottle of wine looks like a bunch of grapes, or a package of milk has a definite resemblance to a cow.
The creative managers try to make their products different and to catch the consumers imagination with the originality of the solution. Sometimes they use common human associations and feelings. For instance, everyone has a sense of irritation when making tea. He notices that a tea bag is completely wrapped up in a cup with a string and a label. The original solution to this problem has been realized by making the label of the teabag in the form of a small ship.
There are also examples of companies, which rely more on creative thinking in advertisement rather than on serious infestations. For instance, such a company like Globetrotter that deals with sports equipment production has provided its clients with the unique opportunity to test their products. In the shops of this company, there have been organized special rooms imitating bad weather conditions, such as the stormy wind and the heavy rain. Moreover, there were also special freezing chambers with a temperature below 30C accompanied by the strong wind.
At first, this unconventional approach provoked the indignation of some consumers, but the passionate proponents of this brand supported this idea. They found it useful to examine the companys products before using them in extreme conditions.
Such a well-known company as Adidas has organized a promoting campaign connected with the launching of new sneakers. The managers of this company have invited a basketball player Derrick Rose who is famous for his unique capacity for high jumping. The main idea of the company was to surpass Derricks jump. If any participant in this competition was successful in it, he received the new sneakers from the sponsors. After this competition, the company shot the video, which was very popular on the Internet, and promoted this product distribution.
Another typical example of the creative approach is the advertising campaign of the Milka Company. It is one of the most charming examples of a creative approach. Milka has mounted an interesting campaign aiming to cause warm sentiments in their customers. Among the distributed sticks of chocolate, there were a few amounts of those, in which one piece was absent. Those people who bought such chocolate had an opportunity to receive it by mail or to send it to somebody else. Such an original idea was very effective from the commercial point of view as it increased the sales level. At the same time, its implementation was not very expensive.
It is possible to distinguish several common factors that are typical for the above-mentioned advertising campaigns. First, all of them are based on the customers experience. The final goal of every creative campaign is to stimulate a consumer to buy products. The most effective campaigns are those, which provoke customers imagination and their desire to share with somebody. Any creative activity should be customer-oriented, and in such a case, feedback from a consumer is of great importance.
The creative activity of an enterprise may be distinguished as a creative process of the solution of its problems. The creative kind of activity is a universal demand of the contemporary economy and a necessary condition for the development of any company. One of the most common definitions of corporate creativity is the ability of the company to develop new ideas (Meyer n.d). In the context of the transformational approach, it may be defined as the ability to get people to want changes and improvements (Northouse, 2001).
Corporate creativity is based on several basic elements. The first one is the initiative. In this aspect, the role of the environment is very important. It is necessary to create such conditions under which an employee may freely and without hesitations express his thoughts. The second one is an informal activity. The role of a successful manager is to stimulate the desire of an employee to work at some idea without the direct references of the company authorities.
It is such kind of activity, which is not committed to an employer, but he carries it out of his own volition. The next element is the ability for casual discoveries. In the creation of the creative idea, random factor plays a very important role (Robinson & Stern 1998). Another important component is the incidental stimulus. As a rule, it appears during the working process at one item, which gives a further impulse for another idea.
One of the major elements of the creative process is a conversation. It goes without saying that in the structure of any company, there are definite boundaries between branches. Often employees of a company communicate only within their department. In order to provide the development of creative activity, it is of great importance to go out of the established borders. Robinson and Stern (1998) call it communication within a company.
As a good example, it is possible to implement such a practice as tables for conversation. For instance, employees write down the topic which is interesting for them and put the tablet with this topic on the table. Other employees who are also concerned with this topic may walk over to this table and discuss it.
The next element is unity. The aim of the authorities of the company is to organize the working process in such a way that the goals of every employee would correspond to a strategy of the organization.
It is a common practice for big companies to have special departments, which staff is responsible for new creative ideas and innovation development. However, as practice shows, many innovations and good ideas are created in an unthinking moment by an ordinary employee. The aim of a successful manager is to encourage with all available means their creative activity.
In general, there is no common formula for an increase in the level of corporate creativity. One of the possible solutions is to allow all employees to work on the ideas which are interesting for them and which may be useful for a companys activity. For instance, such a famous company as Hewlett Packard allows its workers several days a week to work on their own projects, which are not connected with their current task (Hall, Johnson & Kepner 2002). Sometimes it is useful to make a rotation between staff and to entrust employees with different tasks. In any case, the specific features of a company should be taken into consideration.
Reference List
Gallo, G 2010, The Presentation. Secrets of Steve Jobs. How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, Mc Graw Hill, New York.
Hall, J, Johnson, S & Kepner, K 2002, Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates.
Lockwood, T & Walton, T 2008, Corporative Creativity. Developing an Innovative Organization, Allworth Press, New York.
Meyer, J n.d., Corporate Creativity. A study of the most innovative companies in the world. Die Ideeologeen.
Northouse G 2010, Leadership Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, Los Angeles.
Robinson, A & Stern, S 1998, Corporate Creativity. How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happen, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco.