Emanuel Soares Ponciano and Creusa Sayuri Tahara Amaral
The purpose of this paper is to present the factors that form the innovation environment in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, from a case study in a Brazilian…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the factors that form the innovation environment in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, from a case study in a Brazilian multinational company operating in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and BPO segment.
Design/methodology/approach
Minnesota Innovation Research Program (MIRP) questionnaire was adopted, aimed to environment conducive to innovation. It was applied to a sample of employees, from different hierarchical levels, who participated in an innovation training program developed and implemented by the organization. The data were analyzed to verify, in a simplified initial diagnosis, the influence of internal and external factors defined by MIRP in the company's innovation process.
Findings
Innovation management process focuses predominantly on processes (71.4% of occurrences). As impact of the factors: results (88.9%), autonomy (76.3%), leadership (74.9%), resources (74.6%), internal relationship of the innovation group (73.1%), formalization (68.4%), processes (64.5%), relationship effectiveness (63.7%), external relationship of the innovation group (63.2%) and dependence on external resources (52.6%). There was confirmation that the innovation program of company is effective and that the culture of innovation is institutionalized.
Research limitations/implications
A crossing of supplementary information could reveal some significant difference in the perception of the innovative culture and performance of the innovation processes between distinguished profiles.
Practical implications
Better guidance for management of ICT/BPO companies in an Open Innovation paradigm.
Social implications
Better relationship among the actors of an Open Innovation industry arrangement.
Originality/value
Improvement of the innovation process can occur through a greater focus on Open Innovation.
Details
Keywords
Janaina Mascarenhas Hornos da Costa, Creusa Sayuri Tahara Amaral, Sânia da Costa Fernandes and Henrique Rozenfeld
The purpose of this paper is to propose and describe a method that uses recurrent problems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the diagnosis of new product development…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose and describe a method that uses recurrent problems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the diagnosis of new product development (NPD) processes and supports the identification of improvement opportunities. The proposed method, called Diagile, is based on recurrent current reality trees (CRTs) and is a new way of building CRTs that includes best project management practices, and the identification and prioritization of improvement opportunities. To support the execution of the method, recurrent problems were identified and a computational tool to aid the diagnosis, a database of improvement opportunities and an automated spreadsheet to prioritize improvement projects were developed.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed method was evaluated through a controlled experiment at a multinational manufacturer of office supplies.
Findings
The results achieved confirm that the use of the Diagile method increases the diagnostic efficiency and effectiveness when compared to diagnoses performed by the traditional CRT method.
Research limitations/implications
The validity of the method must be tested on a larger scale, since this work involved only one controlled experiment for this purpose. The experiment involved the participation of postgraduate research assistants, who cannot be considered specialists in the diagnosis of NPD. One could question whether the method will be as helpful for proficient users as well. The authors did not have proficient users available to run the experiment. However, the authors believe that such a specialist would save time in carrying out a diagnosis with Diagile, and also be more effective in validating the diagnosis. However, this assumption could not be tested here and can therefore be considered a limiting factor of the experiment. Nevertheless, the positive results of the evaluations of the companies and users of the two case studies corroborate the statement that the objective of this work was attained.
Practical implications
The greater efficiency and effectiveness provided by the proposed Diagile method was also evident in the identification and prioritization of improvement opportunities. The experimental group drew up a more relevant and coherent list of improvement projects than the control group, and provided documentation for these projects in the form of project charts. The authors believe these results can be of a great impact if implemented by practitioners.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a new way to perform diagnostic of NPD process. In particular, this process is well known to be highly strategic, nevertheless, normally excluded out of improvement initiatives because of its complexity. The diagnostic method proposed is a powerful tool to assist practitioners finding systemic improvement opportunities, expanding the assessment to all dimensions of a business process, e.g. people, technology and process activities.