Digital Multimedia Report

CURTIN UNIVERSITY

UNIT: MANAGEMENT OF INNOVATION 301

Name: Muhammad Jawad Khalid Cheema Student ID: 7E1B8873/15658672 Lecturer: Adreil Sim Email: jawadkc@gmail.com Total file word count Less direct quotes Less tables of content Less reference lists Total net word count 3,098 0 64 287 2747

Table of Contents Executive Summary................................................................................... 3 Company Profile & Background.............................................................. 3 Establishing an Environment for Innovation - IP Strategies............................................................................................. 3,4 - Managing Organisational Knowledge and Innovation........................ 4, 5 - Colaborations........................................................................................... 5 Implementing Innovation - Managing Innovation & Operations Management............................... 6, 7 - New Product Development...................................................................... 7, 8, 9 Points to Ponder.......................................................................................... 9 Questions from the CEO............................................................................. 10 Conclusion................................................................................................... 10 Reference List............................................................................................... 11, 12

Olivia Humphrey - Kanopy

1. Executive Summary

In this report I will be analysing Kanopy a streaming website in accordance with its IP strategies, knowledge management procedure , collaborations as well as its innovation and operation management techniques and also talk about their new product development process. these analysis will be made in order to paint and provide a proper picture of kanopy current position and situation in the market and how they operate.
2. Company Profile & Background

Olivia Humphrey is the managing director as well as founder of Kanopy. she used to work as a marketing manager for a company called Roadshow Entertainment when she realised a missing link in the way the streaming technology was being used by students. she thought sites like YouTube were famous but were not using streaming to its full potential. Hence by 2007 Olivia Humphrey started the business in her house with only ten to fifteen thousand dollars and now Kanopy is the leading supplier of DVD and Videos for Australian Universities (Mathew 2012) Kanopy is now regarded as the Netflix of the educational sector with a database of 15000 videos. Kanopy acts as a bridge between filmmakers and university libraries. their clients have to obtain licenses which allows them to stream their content anytime without a limit. some applications are introduced to encourage students and give them a new experience. Kanopy gives a special search method due to which their clients can ask for for material which isn't promoted,& then kanopy will seek to obtain those contents for their customers. There unique company structure has changed itself the way libraries &film makers operate. (A teaching revolution 2013)
3. Establishing an environment for innovation. IP Strategies

Intellectual property can be defined as the property which is driven from the intellect of a brain (IP 2013). It includes things such as , inventions, formulas, different discoveries, software designs and other works whether they be musical, artistic or literal. These innovative ideas have their own value and are protected under things such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, imitation laws and infringement laws (Intellectual Property 2013). Intellectual properties are basically focused in order to form an IP strategy which itself is sort of game plan that a company creates in order to meat its goals (IP Strategy defined 2010). at Kanopy Olivias group has invented a complex & distinctive application which itself is exceptional. Kanopys operation model and foundation is based on codes which they protect by keeping them well hidden and with the help of continuously innovating, developing, and 3

adopting change, this helps them gain a competitive advantage over others. Kanopy does have the choice to patent or copywrite their codes & inventions but they choose not to as Firstly, if the code is patented, its description will be open to public due to which anyone can use different codes to create a similar application and it wont be an infringement as the codes are not exactly the same. Secondly, as codes demand continuous upgrading in order to hold a competitive edge. so by the time the code would get patented there's a huge chance that the code would have already become obsolete and replaced by a better one. Lastly, copyrighting or patenting themselves are very costly and it would be a waste if codes become obsolete too quickly. (Humphrey 2013) Managing organizational knowledge and innovation strategies The process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledgebased assets in an effort to devise best practices (Meridith 2013). a company's knowledge base includes 5 different aspects. firstly there are the individual assets which basically are the skills people in the organization posses. secondly there is the technology property which basically concerns the production process. thirdly comes managerial resources which are responsible for the system and operations through which things get done. next it's the external resources which are the relations and contacts a company has with its clients, competitors, politicians, suppliers etc.. and lastly its the projects itself by which most resources are deployed and organized. (Trott 2012) in kanopys case they work on a cloud based operating system which can be defined as a light operating system which uses web apps and saves information from remote servers (Margaret 2013) in simpler terms it is usage of internet to perform tasks on the computer (Margaret 2013). there cloud operating system is designed to improve continuously making sure that everything is visible to all the employees. furthermore a compulsory intensive training is provided to every new employee for 3 months to make sure that they know every aspect on how the business works as well as how what information is passed through each hierarchy level. This immensely adds value to the business. (Humphrey 2013) kanopy doesn't have the habit of conducting a lot of meeting for their employees, they actually organize big team meetings where its compulsory for everyone to attend. its more of an information session where everyone input their ideas so that all information is passed to everyone. (Humphrey 2013). competency levels should be high in business so that unique products are created which are hard to imitate so that long term profits can be enjoyed. (Trott 2012) since kanopy's core competency is high as they created a unique software which keeps on improving and its hard to imitate as the coding is hard to copy. they will easily earn long term profits. (Humphrey 2013). Figure 1.0 below represents how core competency and imitability effects the profitability of a company

Figure 1.0 (Afual 2003)

absorptive capacity can be described as the ability of a firm to process new information and manage it in a productive fashion in order to obtain favourable outcomes (What Is Absorptive Capacity 2013). kanopy has always been progressing on what external knowledge they posses which helps to perform efficiently to acquire their needs .we can easily say that kanopy has absorptive capacity as they are managing different sorts of information for different clients are meeting the unique information requirement of their clients whether they be corporations or universities (Humphrey 2013). Collaboration strategies organizations often collaborate or go into strategic alliances with other companies. this could be for numerous reasons such as, increasing capital, reduce research and development cost, improved market and technological strength etc. (Trott 2012). there are certain risks that arise from strategic alliances e.g reduced control in managing, more complexities and conflicts due to different goals and corporate cultures, lesser competitive knowledge and the firms might be competing with each other rather than actually cooperating due to which information could be distorted (Trott 2012). kanopy uses licensing which can be defined as the permission given to use a business's intellectual property rights like technology, patents, trademarks etc. (Licensing 2013) kanopy has already acquired rights of different businesses to use their content and provide them with a streaming platform. under the licensing agreement with MEF, kanopy will provide MEF with a streaming platform and MEF will give them their customers & clients by approaching them and telling them that MEF's content now can be bought digitally on kanopy streaming and therefore kanopy will also get to sign contracts with MEF's clients and customers and hence will be entitled keep a portion of the sales profit. This way MEF will save itself from spending heavily on creating a similar software as kanopy and in turn improve the sales for its own content.

4. Implementing innovation

Managing innovation and operations management

a definition of innovation could be described as the transition of a certain invention or an idea into a service or good with such a value for which consumers will easily be willing to pay
(Innovation 2013).

Innovation is considered as the prime basis for creating wealth, and is extremely crucial for business survival (de Waal, Anton, MAritz and Sheih, 2010) From the above we can see that innovation itself is not easy to manage, but it indeed does help strategically as innovation provides new creations as well as breakthroughs which improves efficiency. The 7 important steps for managing innovation efficiently are as follows: 1.Strategic thinking, 2. managing portfolio, 3. Research, 4. Inputs, 5.developing the innovation, 6. Developing the market, 7. Commercialisation (Innovation 2013). Management of the innovation process is actually the improvement of the creativity prospective of an organization. The main attribute of an innovation procedure is uncertainty management. A framework designed by Pearson (Figure 1.1), assist in evaluating and recognizing innovation process and uncertainty
(Trott 2012).

High

3. Application Engineering
Uncertainty of the Outcome

1. Exploratory Research

1. joining market opportunities with technical capabilities

2. Development Engineering

Low (Pearson 1991) Uncertainty of the approached used Figure 1.1

High

to further enhance the innovation performance a certain innovation incentive or stimulus is required at the start and more importantly an innovation faculty with extensive capabilities are needed to achieve the desired performance (Trott 2012). Internal Research and development is mainly vital but it is also advised that because of the problems with managing human resources as well as finances, small medium entrepreneurs can depend on some other outside Research and development options by creating collaborations with other small medium entrepreneurs or even large corporations if needed. (Dodgson and Rothwell, 1991; Riedle, 1989) 6

Innovation stimulus Leadership People Management Knowledge Management Creativity Management

2012)

Innovation capacity Technology Management R&D Management

Figure 1.2

Innovation performance Product Innovation Process Innovation

(Trott

considering Kanopy, we can see that in the beginning Olivia was worried about the US market but later realised that opportunities do exist as she found out other business that were starting up. mainly for innovation management Kanopy used make use of its internal resources but at this point when entering a new market they decided to use external resources as well and hence created alliances with other companies in order to become a foundation or a platform for education, media and networking based companies so that they can sell their content online through streaming E.g. MEF. all the way through the venture Kanopy consistently enhanced its softwares and also improved the quality and the amount of content they were providing to their users. hence the conclusion is that Kanopy sits on the fourth quadrant in the map od uncertainty. Furthermore Kanopy has excellent recruiting policy due to which they enjoy a working team which is unique and extremely innovative and helps work through uncertainties in an effective manner. as far as long term goals are considered Kanopy prefers videos to play an objective role in higher education enhance educational standards and create its own community.
New product development

NPD (New Product Development) can be referred to as the process by which a new service or product in introduced in the market. it also helps with the developing, marketing, conception, analysis and selling of the product (New Product Development 2012). Electronic New development can be described as joining the organizational process with IT applications and knowledge systems in order to improve innovation (Yang and Liming 2002). New Product Development process consists of 7steps which are firstly strategy planning, then gathering information, thirdly creating opportunities for the business, next to generate the idea of the product, then they have to develop prototypes, fifthly to conduct technical testing and lastly to introduce the product in the market. Furthermore to achieve NPD three vital objectives should be fulfilled which are first to make sure that they are meeting the needs and requirements of the customers. Secondly they should decrease the time taken to launch the product in the market and lastly they should try to minimize the production cost as much possible without affecting the quality. (Trott 2012)

Opportunities for business Growth will always exist when NPD is in place. figure 1.3 below shows Ansoff's matrix which helps in deciding on developing strategy (Product/Market Grid 2013)

(Product/Market Grid 2013)

Figure 1.3

Growth can also take place with the help of external and internal achievements. New product development Network model is another way of outlining the external factors linking with the internal which come together in order to successfully develop a product. (Trott 2012)

(Suwannaporn and Speece 2000)

Figure 1.4

the Next activity in NPD process is generating business opportunities. the idea is to assemble any prospective business opportunities which can easily be used to create a successful product. (Trott 2012)
Unexploited patents Brainstorming Buyers and Sellers

Technology

Generating business oppurtunities

Existing Products

Rivals products & Reverse engineering Individuals Figure 1.5 Upper level Mangement

Next comes the screening of these opportunities and ideas. screening is a basic activity when it comes to new product development. screening is done for the soul reason to select those opportunities which would most likely be successful and reject the others. (Trott 2012) Kanopy's products are the content they stream which is basically huge. they are consistently bringing in new content on an average of three hundred content in a week. they have also been releasing applications to encourage more student involvement. but their main focus at the moment is on the higher education market but they are willing to explore new opportunities at the same time. e.g. the new market consists of corporations, schools, libraries etc. thus in accordance with ansoffs model kanopy can chose a market development strategy and or diversification strategy. kanopy should also use screening in generation of new opportunities to make out what options they have to make sure they reach a favourable outcome. Therefore Kanopy can sell new substance according to the needs in the new market &present a diversified service for example live streaming of lectures for all their partner universities. In which case, external inputs will be given by the universities in shape of finance for the gear used e.g. video cameras to properly stream lectures through Kanopy (Humphrey 2013).
4.1 Points to ponder.

There are things or options kanopy can explore such as going into collaboration with companies like Google or face book this way they wont have to worry about there advertisement and plus every user who has a Google account for example could have automatic access to kanopy from the same email and in return kanopy could provide them the content at a discounted rate. further more if kanopy faces any financial problems they can register the company in the stock market and sell some shares in order to attract investors and increase the capital of the company. this option could be used especially when kanopy in the future decides to go global.

5. Questions from the CEO 1. How and where do you think Kanopy can continue to innovate to preserve the trajectory of being true game-changers?

kanopy should also explore the opportunity to provide live streaming of conferences and lectures. kanopy can always ask their partner universities to encourage their students to work on projects with kanopy to bring more technological and innovative improvements. this way kanopy will have more brains working for them. furthermore Kanopy should try to become a media analysist or provider itself rather then obtaining licenses from different companies, this way kanopy will have more content and more profits and a new area to work in.
2. What do you think some of the challenges Kanopy will face in scaling up globally?

as the global market is a hard target due to competition, even though kanopy is one of the leading online educational stream providers, there biggest problem is promotion and advertisement. kanopy has to conduct more advertisement campaigns to promote themselves and create awareness. this can be done by using media, providing internships, sponsoring big events or charities. this way kanopy can easily go into contracts with more universities world wide as well as corporations and thus should obtain more licences from companies like MEF around the globe.

6. Conclusion and recommendations

as we have analysed Kanopy through different areas which are IP,knowledge management, collaboration, innovation and product development. the conclusion comes down to the fact that kanopy truly has a lot of potential to capture the global market for educational streaming and revolutionize education itself. there innovation has been consistent with full proof softwares and there product development strategy so far has been solid which allows them to easily expand into the global market. the only short coming i have noticed is that kanopy really needs to work hard on promoting themselves.

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7. Reference List

Afuah, A. 2003, Innovation Management: Strategies, Implementation and Profit, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, USA. A teaching revolution: Kanopys Olivia Humphrey. 2013. Women in Focus. https://www.womeninfocus.com.au/docs/DOC-2172. de Waal, Anton, Alex Maritz, and Chich Jen Shieh. 2010. "Managing Innovation: A Typology of Theories and Practice-Based Implications for New Zealand Firms." International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online) 3 (2): 35-57. http://search.proquest.com/docview/763161472?accountid=10382.

Framework." Industrial Management + Data Systems 102 (3): 218-225. http://search.proquest.com/docview/234906439?accountid=10382.

Innovation. 2013. BusinessDictionary. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/innovation.html Intellectual Property: Definition of intellectual property. 2013. Merriam Webmaster. http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/intellectual%20property. Intellectual Property. 2013. BusinessDictionary. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/intellectualproperty.html Levinson, Meridith. 2013. CIO: Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions. Accessed May 9, http://www.cio.com/article/40343/Knowledge_Management_Definition_and_Solutions Licensing. 2013. InvestWords.com. http://www.investorwords.com/2799/licensing.html Mathew Hogan. 2012. Smarter: How Kanopy Became The YouTube Of The Education Sector. Accessed May 5, http://smarter.telstrabusiness.com/awards/how-kanopy-became-the-youtube-ofthe-education-sector.htm. New Product Development 2012. QFINANCE. http://www.qfinance.com/dictionary/new-productdevelopment Pearson, A.W. 1991, Managing Innovation: an uncertainty reduction process, in Managing Innovation, J.Henry and D.Walker (eds), Sage/OU Product/Market Grid. 2013. VectorStudy. http://vectorstudy.com/management-theories/productgrid. Rouse, Margaret. 2013. SearchCloudApplications: Cloud OS. Accessed May 9, http://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-OS Small and Medium- Sized Enterprises: An Empirical Study." Benchmarking for Quality Management & Technology 4 (4): 259-259. market-

http://search.proquest.com/docview/217377877?accountid=10382.
Soderquist, Klas, J. J. Chanaron, and Jaideep Motwani. 1997. "Managing Innovation in French.

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Suwannaporn, Prisana and Mark Speece. 2000. "Continuous Learning Process in New Product Development in the Thai Food-Processing Industry." British Food Journal 102 (8): 598http://search.proquest.com/docview/225149456?accountid=10382 Trott, P. (2012). Lecture 5: Managing Organizational Knowledge. PowerPoint Lecture notes. Trott, P. 2012, Innovation Management and New Product Development (5 ed.), Pearson Education, Ltd. Essex, England Trott, P. (2012). Lecture 11: Managing New Product Development and Report Roundtable. PowerPoint Lecture notes. What Is Absorptive Capacity. 2013. wiseGeek. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-absorptivecapacity.htm. Yang, Jie and Liming Yu. 2002. "Electronic New Product Development - a Conceptual.
th

614.

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7. Appendix (for Multimedia Exhibits)

Timeline:

Link for timeline : Timeline

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